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10. SBL filed Writ Petition (Crl) No. 262 of 2018 before this Court challenging the constitutional validity of Sections 3 and 45 of the PMLA and also sought quashing of the ECIRs against it.

11. The DOE on 23rd December 2017 filed a complaint under Section 45 PMLA before the learned Special Judge, PMLA with the prayer for further investigation. In the said complaint, cognizance was taken by the learned Special Judge on 23rd December 2017 itself under Section 44 (1) (b) PMLA.

27. Further the SOR to the PML Amendment Bill 2005 inter alia noted in para 2 (c) that one of the purposes for the amendment was to ―omit clause

(a) of sub-section (1) of Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, which provides that every offence punishable under that Act shall be cognizable.‖

28. It is clear, therefore, that as far as the Parliament was concerned, the amendment to Section 45 was with the specific intention of making the offences under the PMLA non-cognizable. Yet, for some reason which could only be explained as inadvertence, the heading of Section 45 PMLA was not changed.

33. Further, in Union of India v. National Federation of the Blind (2013) 10 SCC 772 it was explained that ―heading of a section or marginal note may be relied upon to clear any doubt or ambiguity‖ but not when a plain reading of the Section itself does not give rise to any doubt or ambiguity.

34. The Court is conscious that in Vakamulla Chandrashekhar v. Enforcement Directorate (supra) a Division Bench of this Court came to the opposite conclusion and held that notwithstanding the 2005 amendment to Section 45 PMLA, there is no positive indication in Section 45 that the offences under the PMLA had become non-cognizable. Despite noting in para 28 of the judgment that ―after the amendment, the police cannot take cognizance of the offence under Section 3 of the PMLA‖, the Division Bench observed that ―even if the offence is no longer cognizable for the purposes of the Code, i.e., the police cannot take cognizance for the said offence, it does not follow that the authority under the Act would not carry out investigation on their own.‖

35. With respect, this Court is of the view that the said conclusion in Vakamulla Chandrashekhar v. Enforcement Directorate (supra) requires reconsideration since it is not in consonance with the express legislative intent that is so evident not only on a plain reading of the amended Section 45 PMLA but even with reference to the SOR to the PML Amendment Bill, and the debates in the Lok Sabha. The decision of the learned Single Judge in Virbhadra Singh v. Enforcement Directorate (supra) also does not appear to be correct in its understanding of the purport of the amendment to Section 45 PMLA. Despite quoting the speech of the Finance Minister, which this Court has also extracted hereinabove, the learned Single Judge has erroneously concluded in para 97 that the offence under PMLA is still cognizable. The Court notes that in Chhagan Chandrakant Bhujbal v. Union of India (supra) a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court proceeded on the basis that it does not matter whether the offence was cognizable or non-cognizable since the power of arrest conferred under Section 19 of the PMLA was not restricted by such characterisation.