A Timely Rebuke by the Apex Court

The Enforcement Directorate needs to respect federal red lines and procedural safeguards

- 

The Supreme Court’s sharp remarks directed at the Enforcement Directorate (ED) while suspending its probe into alleged financial irregularities at the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac), the Tamil Nadu government’s liquor distribution body, should serve as a wake-up call for the federal agency.

On Thursday, a bench comprising Chief Justice of India BR Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih expressed serious concern over what it described as ED’s overreach and questioned the legality of the agency’s actions. It pulled up ED for coercive search and seizure operations at Tasmac headquarters in Chennai between March 6 and 8, in the absence of a predicate offence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), more so when several FIRs on alleged graft, overpricing of liquor bottles and tender manipulation were registered by the state government itself. The bench asked how the agency entered a space that the state was already investigating, and said “ED is crossing all limits”.