The Supreme Court of India.
Credit: PTI File Photo
The Supreme Court’s criticism of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) over its action in Tamil Nadu is an indictment of the agency and may even be considered a warning. It has suspended the agency’s investigations into alleged financial irregularities in the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) and expressed serious concern over its activities. The bench, comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) B R Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih, expressed disapproval of the coercive search and seizure operations at Tasmac’s headquarters in Chennai between March 6 and 8, when there was no predicate offence. A predicate crime is a crime that generates money which is then laundered. The state government itself had registered cases pertaining to corruption, tender manipulation, and overpricing of liquor bottles. The bench questioned the agency why it had entered a space that the state was already investigating, and said the ED was “crossing all limits”. The court also asked how a case could be filed against a corporation in a criminal matter. ‘’You are totally violating the federal structure’’, the court told the ED. The court’s orders and observations came in a case filed by the DMK-led Tamil Nadu government and Tasmac against the searches conducted by the ED.
The court has criticised the ED in the past also. It has “become a pattern” for the central agency to level allegations without proof, the court observed, while hearing a bail petition in a money laundering case linked to liquor sale in Chhattisgarh under the earlier Congress government. It has accused the ED of using the Prevention of Money Laundering Act to harass and keep the accused person in jail and criticised it for “high-handedness” and “inhuman conduct’’.
The Tasmac case is seen as yet another instance of the ED’s zeal to target entities in Opposition-ruled states and Opposition politicians. The court’s orders and observations have to be seen in that context. The ED has filed many times more cases against politicians under the BJP government after 2014 than under the UPA government before that. The ED and the CBI have turned out to be weapons for harassment of Opposition politicians. Over 95% of the cases filed by the ED are against Opposition politicians. But many of them who faced ED action have got relief after they joined the BJP. The conviction rate in ED cases is abysmally low. Of the 5,906 cases registered till January 2023, only 25 ended in convictions. That shows that the cases were intended for harassment. The use of state agencies for harassment of citizens is undemocratic and their deployment against governments in Opposition-ruled states is a threat to federalism.