TASMAC Vs ED case: Madras High Court to deliver verdict on April 23

TASMAC Vs ED case: Madras High Court to deliver verdict on April 23

The Madras High Court on Monday (April 21, 2025) decided to pronounce its judgment on Wednesday (April 23, 2025) on a batch of three writ 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 between March 6 and 8, 2025.

A Division Bench of Justices S.M. Subramaniam and K. Rajasekar reserved their verdict after hearing elaborate arguments advanced by Advocate General P.S. Raman for the State government, senior counsel Vikas Singh and Vikram Choudhary for TASMAC, and Additional Solicitor General (ASG) S.V. Raju, assisted by ED Special Public Prosecutor N. Ramesh, for the prosecution.

The A-G had expressed serious concerns about the ED choosing to raid the headquarters of a State-owned corporation on the basis of stray First Information Reports (FIRs) registered by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) in the last few years against a few lower level staff, such as district managers and depot managers, on the charge of corruption.

He said that if this practice of the central agency was allowed unchecked, then it would do the same with other State-owned undertakings, such as Tamil Nadu Minerals Limited (TAMIN) and so on, at the will and pleasure of the ED officials. They would then end up scouting for materials to implicate higher authorities of such institutions, thereby directly challenging the federal character of the country.

He also accused the ED officials of indulging in human rights violations by detaining even the women staff of TASMAC headquarters beyond midnight, during the search and seizure operation that was carried out over a period of three days at a stretch. The A-G accused the ED of not having sought the assistance of the State government before embarking on such a raid.

On the other hand, the ASG denied the allegations of human rights violations and claimed that the women staff were permitted to go home during night hours and were asked to report back to the office in the day. He also said that the search and seizure operation was conducted on the basis of as many as 46 FIRs registered by the DVAC under the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1988.

Mr. Ramesh told the court that Tamil Nadu was the only State that had not appointed a nodal officer to assist the ED, as required under Section 50 of PMLA, in finding out the predicate offences. He also stated that the State government and Tamil Nadu Director General of Police had not responded, despite multiple communications sent to them seeking assistance in probing money laundering offences.