Punjab and Haryana HC Grants Interim Bail to 76-Year-Old PMLA Accused on Medical and Prolonged Custody Grounds
A Division Bench held that the rigours of Section 45 of the PMLA cannot bar interim bail when an accused is medically unfit and has been in custody for over five years.
The High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh granted interim bail on 10 September 2026 to Davinder Singh Nirwal, a 76-year-old accused in a money laundering case, holding that the twin conditions of Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) cannot stand in the way when an undertrial is so medically unfit that treatment within prison walls becomes a mere formality. The bench of Justice Anoop Chitkara and Justice Harmeet Singh Deol, sitting as a Division Bench, confined its examination strictly to medical condition and prolonged pre-trial custody, expressly declining to assess the merits of the Enforcement Directorate’s case. The order covers the period from 11 September 2026 to 21 December 2026, with liberty to seek an extension.
The Dispute Before the Court
Nirwal was booked under the PMLA in ECIR No. 02/JLZO/2013, registered on 25 March 2013 at Police Station Fatehgarh Sahib. The predicate offences originated from FIR No. 45, registered on 3 March 2013, alleging that Nirwal smuggled 925 kg of ketamine to China and one tonne of pseudoephedrine to Canada, with the police also seizing 10 kg of pseudoephedrine and 500 grams of intoxicating powder from him. A second FIR — No. 241 of 2013 — was also registered against him at Police Station Patiala in connection with those seizures.
This was Nirwal’s second appearance before the High Court under Section 483 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), seeking interim bail on medical grounds. His counsel explicitly reserved the right to approach the court separately on merits and prolonged pre-trial custody if medical bail was denied or not extended.
The Enforcement Directorate opposed bail on multiple fronts. Its counsel submitted that Nirwal had initially evaded summons from 2016, was arrested with difficulty, and would be a flight risk if released. The ED also pointed to his prior convictions: he had been convicted in FIR No. 1 dated 17 June 2018 and sentenced to 12 years; convicted in FIR No. 41 dated 7 December 2013 and sentenced to four years; and had already completed a sentence in FIR No. 214 of 2018 under the Prisons Act. Additionally, the ED alleged that Nirwal had purchased numerous properties in India in the name of his son, Rao Bahadur Nirwal, who is also an accused but remains absconding.
The ED further contended that a successive bail application was not maintainable because an earlier bail petition had been dismissed on merits. Its reply affidavit, dated 7 June 2026, stated that Nirwal’s medical needs — including spinal surgery — had been attended to by jail authorities and that he could be shifted to government hospitals as required.
The Medical Condition and the Custody Period
The bail petition stated that Nirwal suffered from multiple severe and debilitating ailments posing a grave and imminent threat to his life, and that his health was deteriorating at an alarming speed daily. It recorded that he had undergone open spinal surgery but still required constant and specialised medical care that was not possible in jail, and that he could not even attend to his personal needs.
The bench noted that the ED’s reply filed a specific denial of neither the medical condition nor the ailments alleged. The focus of the ED’s reply was on the gravity of the offence, previous rejections on merits, and the flight risk argument — not on contradicting the medical facts. The bench treated the absence of a specific denial as significant.
Per the custody certificate dated 17 August 2026, Nirwal had been in custody in the present ECIR for five years, one month and twelve days.
How the Bench Reasoned
The bench drew a clear boundary at the outset: it would examine only medical grounds and prolonged custody. The earlier dismissal of bail on merits was therefore held to be irrelevant to this application, and the ED’s objection on that score did not survive.
On Section 45 of the PMLA, the bench acknowledged the twin conditions but held that those rigours cannot be a hindrance “if someone is medically so unfit that the treatment inside the closed walls of the prison becomes a mere formality.” The bench grounded this in Article 21 of the Constitution of India, observing that denying bail in such circumstances would violate the right to life, which can be taken only by due process of law. The bench noted that the proviso to Section 45 of the PMLA itself carves out an exception for sick or infirm persons, as the Supreme Court had clarified in Gautam Kundu v. Manoj Kumar (2015).
The bench then articulated a broader principle on aged and infirm undertrials. It observed that the rationale behind detention — deterrence, retribution, and societal protection — loses its purpose when the inmate is on the last leg of life. The bench stated that unhealthy old age is a curse and that denying bail to a person so sick that treatment outside prison walls is medically warranted is inhumane, subject to exceptions such as recidivism, flight risk, extreme perversity, or crimes so heinous that release would be disastrous to society.
Going further, the bench directed that whenever a person above 75 years of age with health issues is in custody, the concerned judge must examine the health and old age issues with utmost sympathy and concern, and must document reasons before rejecting such a bail application. This direction, framed in plain terms, places an affirmative obligation on courts dealing with elderly undertrials in custody.
On prolonged custody, the bench drew on the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Sheikh Javed Iqbal v. State of Uttar Pradesh (July 2024), which held that an undertrial’s Article 21 right to speedy trial overrides restrictive statutory bail conditions when trial drags on with no end in sight. It also referred to Bachhu Yadav v. Directorate of Enforcement (September 2023), where the Supreme Court granted bail after approximately one year’s custody in a PMLA case.
The bench separately addressed the interplay between the NDPS Act and the PMLA charges. The main predicate offence here was under the NDPS Act, which carries its own rigorous bail threshold under Section 37, similar to Section 45 of the PMLA. The bench acknowledged the large quantity of narcotics allegedly involved but reasoned that the PMLA charge — concerning the laundering of drug money — should not result in perpetual incarceration merely because the ED had been unable to recover the proceeds of crime or because of loopholes in the statute. The bench held that the failure to conclude trial in over five years could not justify continued detention.
For its analysis of medical bail precedents, the bench also drew on the Supreme Court’s orders in Tulsi Ram Yadav v. State of Uttar Pradesh (March 2020), where interim bail was granted to a murder convict suffering from pancreatic carcinoma, and Shoma Kanti Sen v. State of Maharashtra (April 2024), where the Supreme Court held that the composite effect of delay in framing charges, period of detention, nature of allegations, age and medical condition warranted bail even where the ailments by themselves might not have been serious enough for medical bail. The bench similarly relied on Sanket Balubhai Patel v. Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (July 2025), where the Supreme Court granted temporary bail for a family member’s cancer treatment.
Conditions Imposed
The bench attached several conditions to the interim bail order. Nirwal accepted, through counsel, that if he repeats the offence, commits any non-bailable offence carrying a sentence of more than seven years, commits any offence under the NDPS Act involving more than half of the intermediate or commercial quantity, or violates Sections 19, 24, or 27-A of the NDPS Act, the State may file an application to revoke bail before the concerned Special Judge or Sessions Court having jurisdiction, which shall have authority to cancel it at its discretion.
The bail is subject to Nirwal furnishing bail bonds of Rs. 1,00,000 with one surety of the like amount, to the satisfaction of the concerned Trial Court, Chief Judicial Magistrate, Judicial Magistrate, or Illaqa Magistrate. The bench noted that surety bonds may be furnished in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the Division Bench in Sukhdev Singh @ Rinku v. State of Punjab (CRA-D-616-2026, decided 29 May 2026, Neutral Citation 2026-PHHC-086085-DB). If bonds are not furnished within ten days, Nirwal’s counsel may approach the Trial Court or Sessions Court for reduction or waiver of the surety, which shall be competent to do so.
The bench also directed that any observation made in the order is tentative, does not express any opinion on the merits of the case, and shall have no bearing on the trial or on any co-accused.
Following the Supreme Court’s directions in Pila Pahan @ Peela Pahan v. State of Jharkhand (May 2026) and the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s Division Bench order in Amit Rana v. State of Haryana (August 2025), the court directed that bail orders must be communicated to jail authorities and the Trial Court on the date of pronouncement, and that the undertrial must be released on the same day or, at most, the next day, subject to compliance with bail conditions.
Outcome
The petition was allowed. Interim bail was granted from 11 September 2026 to 21 December 2026. Nirwal is directed to surrender by 11 AM on 22 December 2026 to the prison from which he was released. Liberty was granted to file an application for extension of interim bail if his health condition does not improve. The order is limited to the bail arising from ECIR No. 02/JLZO/2013 and is not a blanket bail order in any other matter. The order takes effect from the time it is uploaded on the court’s official webpage. The bench certified the order as speaking, reasoned, and reportable.