The Madras High Court has refused to issue a direction to the Tamil Nadu government and Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) to forward all First Information Reports (FIRs) registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for simultaneous registration of Enforcement Case Information Reports (ECIRs) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
The First Division Bench of Chief Justice S.V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy rejected the plea to issue such a direction after pointing out that neither the State government nor the DVAC was legally mandated to forward the FIRs to the ED. “In the absence of any legal provision, direction cannot be issued in that regard,” the Bench wrote while disposing of a public interest litigation (PIL) petition.
The petitioner, R. Karthikeyan’s counsel, had contended that offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act were scheduled offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), and that the ED was the competent authority to investigate, track and trace this ill-gotten money. Therefore, he claimed that the DVAC, being the predicate agency, was duty-bound to inform the ED of all FIRs registered on charges of corruption.
On the other hand, Advocate General R. Shunmugasundaram told the court that all FIRs registered by the DVAC were being forwarded to the jurisdictional courts besides being uploaded on the website. He pointed out that there was no rule, regulation or a legal provision to forward the FIRs to the ED. The judges accepted his submission since the petitioner’s counsel too, was unable to refer to any such provision.
Though the petitioner’s counsel also alleged that the DVAC picks and chooses the FIRs to be uploaded online and does not upload all of them, the A-G refuted the statement and said, some FIRs might not have got uploaded solely due to technical reasons. He assured the court that efforts would be taken to upload all FIRs. “We accept the statement made by learned Advocate General in this regard,” the Bench observed while disposing of the case.
