Opinion Express View on SC’s latest rap to ED: It should take heed and reboot

Last week, the Supreme Court stayed the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) probe into money laundering activities at the Tamil Nadu government’s liquor distribution agency, TASMAC, and censured the investigative body for acting beyond its remit. The Court expressed concern at the manner in which the ED had made its way into an ongoing Tamil Nadu government investigation. Between 2014 and 2021, the state government filed more than 40 FIRs against officials accused of taking bribes for the allotment of liquor outlets. Then, in March this year, the ED jumped into the fray and raided the retailer’s headquarters. The TN government approached the apex court after being denied relief by the Madras High Court. It argued that the criminal acts were committed by individuals, and not the Corporation. The SC’s two-judge bench agreed that the central investigative agency had no jurisdiction over the case. It found the ED’s intervention “unnecessary” and in infringement of the federal principle. The SC’s rebuke — “the ED has crossed all limits” — comes at a time when the investigating agency is increasingly inviting accusations of being wielded by the Centre against critics and political opponents.

The TASMAC case is not the first time the SC has pulled up the ED for violating red lines and misusing the stringent Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Earlier this month, the Court expressed concern that the agency had made allegations without backing them in “umpteen number” of money laundering cases. “This is the pattern — just make allegations without any reference to anything,” the Court said, while hearing the bail plea of an accused in a liquor scam case in Chhattisgarh. A month ago, the Court had called out the agency for paying scant heed to the “fundamental rights of the accused” in another case in Chhattisgarh. In January, the Court criticised the ED for grilling a former Haryana MLA for nearly 15 hours and “violating his dignity”.

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After upholding the contentious provisions of the PMLA in its 2022 verdict in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary vs Union of India, the SC underlined the importance of personal liberty-related safeguards while applying the harsh law and nudged the ED to be more transparent. Last year, the Court cited the agency’s low conviction figures — less than 1 per cent in the past 10 years — and asked it to conduct a “scientific investigation” into its procedures. However, these strictures do not seem to have pushed the ED into mending its ways. Instead, it has, as the Court pointed out in the Chhattisgarh liquor scam case, continued to use “process as punishment”. The agency’s selective targeting of Opposition leaders in the past 10 years has done its reputation no good. In 2022, for instance, an investigation by this paper revealed that more than 95 per cent of political leaders probed by the agency from 2014 came from Opposition ranks. Given that battlelines are being drawn for the Tamil Nadu assembly elections next year, the timing of the ED’s action against the state government-run retailer invites sobering questions. It is nobody’s case that accountability for corruption should not be fixed. However, scrupulous adherence to due procedures and zero compromise on transparency should be the guiding principles of such operations. The SC’s latest reproach should jolt the ED to introspect — and course correct.