State machinery should help ED find out if offence has been committed: SC to TN govt

The state machinery should help the Enforcement Directorate in finding out if an offence has been committed as there is no harm in it, the Supreme Court told the Tamil Nadu government on Monday.

The apex court had last week questioned the Tamil Nadu government for filing a plea in the Madras High Court against the ED for its probe in a money laundering case.

The Central probe agency had summoned the district collectors of Vellore, Tiruchirappalli, Karur, Thanjavur and Ariyalur in connection with its probe in a money laundering case related to alleged illegal sand mining.

The state government along with the bureaucrats had moved the high court that stayed the summons issued by the ED. The probe agency has moved the top court against the high court order. The ED’s plea came up for hearing on Monday before a bench of justices Bela M Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Tamil Nadu, said the apex court had last time asked how the state could have filed the petition before the high court.

“How can the state be aggrieved if district collectors are asked something? If the district collector in individual capacity was aggrieved, he could have filed,” the bench said. “The state has to comply with the law of parliament under Article 256 (of the Constitution). The state has to comply with PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act),” it added.

The bench asked how the writ petition filed before the high court was maintainable.

Sibal said mining was not a scheduled offence under the PMLA and the state was aggrieved because the ED was asking for information from the district collectors.

“Under which provision of the PMLA, they (ED) are entitled to do this,” Sibal asked, adding that ED is concerned with money laundering.

“In this case, the state is filing a writ petition because the authority of the state has been asked to produce documents with respect to mining leases,” Sibal said, adding the state was aggrieved by the “omnibus order” of the ED asking the district collectors to give information. The senior advocate argued that no formal notice had been issued by the apex court to the state on the ED’s plea. Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, appearing for ED, told the bench that under the Supreme Court Rules, there was no need to give formal notice to a caveator.

He said the case does not relate to the offence of mining only as offences of criminal conspiracy and cheating under the Indian Penal Code were also there.