Madras High Court judges recuse from hearing TASMAC cases against ED search, seizure operation

Madras High Court judges recuse from hearing Tamil Nadu government's petitions against ED searches at TASMAC headquarters.

A Division Bench of Justices M.S. Ramesh and N. Senthilkumar of the Madras High Court on Tuesday (March 25, 2025) recused from hearing the writ petitions filed by Tamil Nadu government and Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) against the searches conducted by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) at TASMAC’s headquarters in Chennai between March 6 and March 8 this year.

The judges said, they had certain reasons for recusing from hearing the three writ petitions and directed the High Court Registry to list them before the alternate Bench. As per the standing instructions, issued with the approval of Chief Justice K.R. Shriram, all cases in which the Bench led by Justice Ramesh must be listed before a Bench of Justices S.M. Subramaniam and K. Rajasekar.

Of the three writ petitions, the first one had been filed jointly by the State government and TASMAC seeking a declaration that the conduct of such searches by the ED, without the consent of the Tamil Nadu government, was in violation of the principle of federalism.

The other two writ petitions were filed by TASMAC alone with one of them seeking a declaration that the search and seizure operation conducted between March 6 and 8 was illegal and the other seeking a direction to the ED not to harass the TASMAC employees in the guise of investigation.

When they were listed for admission on March 20, the Bench led by Justice Ramesh had granted time till March 24 for the ED to file its counter affidavit to the two writ petitions filed by TASMAC and adjourned the hearing to March 25. However, on Tuesday, the Bench chose to recuse itself.