While the top brass of the agency intervened following widespread opposition and instructed against such action in future, the reputation of the ED went for a nosedive.
Going by Friday’s orders of the Madras High Court staying the case against film producer Akash Bhaskaran and his friend Vikram Ravindran in what is popularly known as the TASMAC money laundering case, it looks as though the Enforcement Directorate (ED) was involved in a wild goose chase through those series of raids, investigations, interrogations, seizures and posts in social media that have been going on for some time.
For the ED, considered a holy cow by many in the country otherwise, there can be nothing more damning than the court’s observation, ‘it would suffice to state that the so called information produced by the Directorate before us, have absolutely no semblance of an information, which may have led them to believe that the petitioner may be involved in the offence of money laundering.’
The High Court bench comprising Justices M S Ramesh and V Lakshminarayanan even told the ED to return the articles seized from the film producer and his friend and said that the search on the premises of the two petitioners and the consequential sealing were carried out without authority or jurisdiction, which was nothing but a slap on the face of the agency set up mainly to prevent money laundering.
In another case, having no connection to the TASMAC, the same agency ended up with egg on its face when it was forced to retract summons issued against two senior advocates Pratap Venugopal and Arvind Datar for dispensing legal advice to their clients.
While the top brass of the agency intervened following widespread opposition and instructed against such action in future, the reputation of the ED went for a nosedive.
Coming back to the TASMAC case, in which the ED misused social media to justify its raid that was carried out in violation of its own investigation guidelines, the details can tickle laughter. For one, technically, the ED is not empowered to take up a money laundering probe unless the amount involved exceeds Rs one crore in disproportionate assets or Rs 10 lakh in isolated quid-pro-quo cases. But the total money involved in the 41 cases – on which FIRs were filed between 2017 and 2022 - was only Rs 29 lakh. So, the basic question arises to what was the basis on which the raids against TASMAC (Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation that procures and sells beer and alcoholic beverages in the State) were started.
After the raids, the ED issued a press release alleging that there was a Rs 1000 crore scam. In their X page on March 13, they revealed that search operations were conducted on March 6 under the provisions of PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) and various incriminating documents were seized. A day ahead of the ED coming out with the Rs 1000 crore figure, a State BJP leader mentioned the same amount while talking to media at the Thoothukudi airport. While it is not clear as from where the ED arrived at the magical Rs 1000 crore figure, it is suspected that they were collating Income Tax evasion findings over a long period of time.
Income Tax officials, during their raids in the past, had extracted statements from old bottle suppliers on receiving payments from liquor manufacturers - from the private sector - through banks, keeping a commission for themselves and returning the remaining amount in cash. Those cases, many of whom are being disputed in courts, are meant to be investigated by the Income Tax department only. But the ED had now taken note of them and added those figures obtained from the raids conducted by the Income Tax sleuths between 2019 and 2022 to the imaginary scam that they are fabricating. If one were to argue that income tax violations also need to be investigated, why did the ED not question anyone reportedly involved in cases in the earlier years of the previous regime.
In fact the ED raids were conducted on breweries and distilleries that had no connection to the offences listed in the 41 FIRS, based on which the entire operation to unearth money laundering was carried out. Though the FIRs, referred to as cause for the raid, were filed only till December 2022, officials of TASMAC who took charge much later as May 2023 were dragged in and persecuted. These actions only indicate that there was no serious attempt to zero in on violations of PMLA, if there were any, by the ED sleuths, who are only suspected to have indulged in creating a false narrative to justify their actions.
An example cited by those closely watching the developments in the case is that the media was awash with news on an ED summons to two top officials of the TASMAC on April 24 evening while the officials concerned received the summons only on April 25. So the speculation is that the ED regularly leaked news to the media. When the ED went to raid a top TASMAC official’s house, the media was already waiting for them to enter the premises. Who alerted them in advance? Some media persons covering the case said the ED has been dropping names of women actors involved in the case to add a dash of glamour to the narrative though no link between TASMAC and Kollywood has been established. Well, the ED that should remain above suspicion, like the legendary Caesar’s wife, has floundered in the TASMAC case.
