Does Your Police Not Conduct Searches? Madras High Court To TN Govt On Opposing ED Raid At TASMAC Headquarters

“Does your government and police not conduct searches?” the Madras High Court orally asked the Tamil Nadu government today while hearing its plea challenging the recent searches conducted by the Enforcement Directorate at the headquarters of Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation Ltd (TASMAC). The bench of Justice SM Subramaniam and Justice K Rajasekar posed the question to Advocate General PS Raman when he submitted that the ED had conducted searches late in the night, not even allowing the officers to leave the office premises. As Justice Subramaniam orally indicated that even State agencies conduct raids and searches, Raman responded that unlike ED, the State does not conduct searches late in the night. The matter was posted before the current bench after the bench of Justice MS Ramesh and Justice N Senthilkumar recused themselves from hearing the case last week. Before recusing, the bench had orally asked the ED on March 20 not to proceed with the investigation till the next hearing. The bench had wondered if the ED had the power to detain the entire office based on materials available against some persons. It had also pointed out that while the ED argued that it had enough materials, the TASMAC's grievance was that such materials were not made available to them. When the matter was taken up today, the AG informed the Court that the State had amended its prayers as per the previous order of the earlier court. In the petition seeking to amend the prayer, the State has sought for the definition of “Persons” under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act to be read down and to exclude any authority, regulator, or officer of the Central or State government from its definition. The amended prayer also seeks a declaration stating that the officers of the State Government are only obliged to assist the ED for enforcing the provisions of the Act. The prayer further seeks a direction to the ED to call only those officers who are authorised under Section 54 to assist the agency. The prayer further seeks a direction to the ED not to enter the premises of any State-owned corporation offices and conduct search and seizure as per Section 17 of the Act. Lastly, the prayer also sought to declare the ED search at TASMAC as illegal. In its plea filed through the Additional Chief Secretary, the State argued that the ED was conducting a roving enquiry without having materials. It was submitted that even after conducting searches for prolonged hours, ED was unable to recover any “proceeds of crime” under the PMLA and thus there was no material to show that TASMAC was involved in the commission of offences under the PMLA. It was submitted that the search itself was without following due procedure as the authorities were not given a copy of the search warrant but were forced to acknowledge of having read and understood the content of the warrant/memo. It was submitted that the search was conducted in blatant disregard to the fundamental rights of life liberty and dignity of the TASMAC employees. In its reply, ED denied all the allegations and submitted that all due procedures were followed at the time of search. ED also denied the allegation that the search was a “roving enquiry” and submitted that multiple FIRs were registered by the DVAC against various officers/staff/employees of TASMAC and since the offences involved were scheduled offence under the PMLA, the agency had taken cognisance. The ED also denied the allegation that the signatures of the officers in the search warrant were taken forcefully. It also submitted that there was no statutory or other obligation to provide a copy of the search warrant. Meanwhile, two impleading petitions have been filed by an activist and an advocate opposing the State's plea. When the State sought time to reply to ED's counter, the Court allowed the request and adjourned the case to April 8 for final hearing. The Court has asked all the parties to complete the pleadings by April 7.AG PS Raman appeared for the State while Senior Advocate Vikram Chaudhari represented TASMAC. The ED was represented by ASG SV Raju assisted by ED Special Counsel Zoheb Hussain and ASG ARL Sundaresan assisted by ED Proseuctor N Ramesh Case Title: Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation Ltd TASMAC v. Directorate of Enforcement Case No: WP 10348/ 2025

Does Your Police Not Conduct Searches? Madras High Court To TN Govt On Opposing ED Raid At TASMAC Headquarters

Upasana Sajeev

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