Chief Justice Kant made the remarks while speaking at the 43rd International Symposium on Economic Crime at the University of Cambridge in London. He also highlighted how the Indian judiciary has proactively responded to emerging fraudulent schemes, including digital arrest scams, rather than waiting for Parliament to enact specific laws.
“As of today, if the global estimates on money laundering are even roughly right, the world launders enough money in a single year to buy every one of the eight billion people alive on the planet today a modest laptop, and still have some change left,” he said.
Chief Justice Kant said that despite the enormous volume of illicit wealth, recovery remains extremely limited.
“And of that immense tide of illicit wealth, by the most generous reckoning, less than one unit in a hundred is ever recovered. If I may present this more simply, for every hundred parts of that wealth, 99 are simply referred to in speeches and reports while only one part is ever actually put right,” he said.
He said the scale of the problem was the reason participants had gathered for the symposium.
“Now, I have not travelled to Cambridge to unsettle such a distinguished gathering with these statistics but instead to impress upon this congregation that this is precisely why we have all convened here this week,” he added.
In the context of India, Chief Justice Kant said the country's response to economic crime should be understood not as a single statute but as a layered architecture developed over successive decades. He said legislation, institutions and judicial doctrine each perform distinct functions within that framework.
He referred to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, and the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018, as part of India's legal response to economic crime.
Chief Justice Kant, however, said these mechanisms were not infallible. He noted that numerous individuals have alleged misuse of the PMLA process by investigating authorities, including claims of arrests made without articulated reasons and custody extended beyond what the existing facts appear to justify.
“In each such instance, the judiciary has intervened to rectify the situation,” he said.
He also referred to the Supreme Court's verdict holding that grounds for arrest must be provided to the accused in writing rather than merely read aloud.
Chief Justice Kant said that what had remained consistent through the decades was the Supreme Court's insistence that due process and the presumption of innocence remain the guiding principles of its jurisprudence.
He further said the very nature of illicit wealth and economic crime was that neither honoured the sovereignty that otherwise shields legal structures from foreign interference.
“Let this symposium's answer be that vigilance, cooperation and the rule of law thwart fraudulence in equal and, I hope, escalating measures,” Chief Justice Kant said.
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