193 politicians faced ED cases between 2015-16 and 2024-25; only 2 convictions

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has registered cases against 193 political leaders, including MPs and MLAs, in the past ten years but it has managed to get conviction only in two cases, the Ministry of Finance informed Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

While 138 leaders found themselves in trouble in the second term of the Narendra Modi government between 2019-20 and 2023-24, ED filed cases against 42 leaders in the last four years of the first term of the Modi government between 2015-16 and 2018-19.

Cases have been registered against 13 leaders between April last year and February this year. The third term of the Modi government started in June last year.

Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said it has not maintained a list of leaders with their party affiliation or the state they belong to but it has a consolidated list of “existing and former MPs, MLAs, MLCs and leaders or anyone affiliated with any political party” for the past ten years.

In a written reply to CPM MP AA Rahim, he said the ED takes up the cases on the basis of credible evidence and material and does not distinguish cases based on political affiliations, religion or otherwise. Further, he said the actions of ED are always open to judicial review.

According to the statistics provided by the Minister, there were no acquitals between 2015-16 and 2024-25 till February 28 while there were two convictions – in 2016-17 and 2019-20.

During the second term of the Narendra Modi government, the data showed, cases were registered against 25-26 leaders on an average.

While the maximum number of cases in the past ten years was in 2022-23 when 32 leaders landed in trouble with the ED followed by 27 each in 2020-21 and 2023-24. In 2019-20 and 2021-22, there were 26 leaders each who found that the anti-money laundering agency had registered cases against them.

In 2015-16, the ED registered cases against 10 followed by 14 in 2016-17, seven in 2017-18 and 11 in 2018-19.

The ED is a premier law enforcement agency of the Government of India which has been entrusted with the administration and enforcement of the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA), Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA) and Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018 (FEOA).

The agency is accountable to different judicial forums viz. Adjudicating Authority, Appellate Tribunal, Special Courts, High Courts and Supreme Court for the actions taken in the course of implementation of the PMLA, 2002, FEMA, 1999 and FEOA, 2018, Chaudhary said.