Madras High Court. File | Image source: K. Pichumani
The Madras High Court on Monday (April 21, 2025) decided to pronounce its judgment on Wednesday (April 23, 2025) on a batch of three write petitions — one filed by the Tamil Nadu government and two by the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) — to declare as illegal the search and seizure operation carried out by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) at the TASMAC headquarters in Chennai are between March 6 and 8, 2025.
The division judges of Justices SM Subramaniam and K. Rajasekar retained their verdict after hearing the meticulous debates brought by advocates PS Raman for the state government, senior legal counsel Vikas Singh and Vikram Choudhary and other Solicitor (ASG) SV Raju.
The agriculture expressed serious concerns over the past few years that ED had over the long-needed first information report (FIR) for a small number of low-level managers (e.g., those responsible for corruption by district managers and Depot Managers over Curforsion) were registered by the Bureau of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) over the past few years.
He said that if such practices against central institutions are allowed to be unrestricted, it would be linked to other state-owned enterprises such as Tamil Nadu Mining Ltd. (Tamin) (Tamin), and so on the will and fun of ED officials. They would then eventually search for materials, involving senior authorities of such institutions, thus directly challenging the country’s federal characteristics.
He also accused ED officials of conducting three days of search and seizure operations at Tasmac headquarters outside midnight, which was indulged in human rights violations by detaining women staff at Tasmac headquarters. AG accused the Emergency Department of not seeking state assistance before conducting such a raid.
On the other hand, the ASG denied allegations of human rights violations and claimed that women staff were allowed to go home at night and were asked to report back home on the same day. He also said that as many as 46 FIRs registered under the DVAC under the 1988 Corruption Prevention Act were conducted.
Mr Ramesh told the court that Tamil Nadu was the only state that did not appoint Nodal officials to provide emergency rooms under section 50 of PMLA to find out predicate crimes. He also said that despite seeking assistance from them to explore money laundering crimes, the state government and the Director-General of Tamil Nadu did not respond.
publishing – April 21, 2025 at 01:02 pm IST
