In a temporary relief to the DMK government of MK Stalin and in particular to V Senthil Balaji, Minister for Electricity and Prohibition and Excise, Madras High Court on Thursday disapproved the manner in which Enforcement Directorate (ED) sleuths carried out the raid on the headquarters of the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) in the city and claimed to have unearthed a multi-crore scam and restrained the agency from taking coercive action till the next hearing.

Objecting to the ED sleuths allegedly confining TASMAC employees in the office and not disclosing the cause for the raid, a Division Bench of Justices MS Ramesh and N Senthilkumar, orally directed the ED not to proceed further pursuant to its searches carried on March 6 and produce copies of the FIR for a predicate offence and the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) as well as other material it had relied upon against TASMAC. The Bench was hearing the petitions filed by the state government and TASMAC, the sole retailer of IMFL in Tamil Nadu, challenging the action of the ED as beyond its jurisdiction.

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Posing questions to the ED, the Bench asked whether it is not an alarming situation to keep the entire office under control for hours together without conveying the reason for the search. “We can understand if you have specific input. But, can you keep the entire office under your control for hours together? If you have reasons to believe, should you not convey it to them. That is their grievance, that they do not know as to why the ED carried out the search,” the judges said.

TASMAC is the monopoly retail seller of liquor in the state and the ED had also carried out raids on distilleries and bottling firms and had claimed to have unearthed financial irregularities and misappropriation to the tune of over Rs 1000 crore. This had created a political storm with the principal opposition AIADMK and BJP demanding action to bring the guilty to the book.

Both the state government and TASMAC submitted that the ED officials barged into the TASMAC headquarters and violated the rights and privacy of the employees by seizing their mobile phones and confining them, including women, for long hours. Advocate General PS Raman and senior counsel Vikram Chaudhary appeared for the state and TASMAC respectively, submitted that they would submit CCTV footage to prove how the employees including the TASMAC MD to the security guard were harassed for 60 hours and the data from their phones was taken.

“This is a classic case where the state government officers, including women, have been made to sit for 60 hours from morning till midnight. They were given a break for six hours and this process continued for three days,” Raman submitted that this was not legitimate investigation. He also said that TASMAC officials were not even made aware of the predicate offences on which the ED had launched the raid. Neither were they given the ECIR nor the search authorization issued by the ED Joint-Director, he added.

Additional Solicitor General ARL Sundaresan denied the allegations against the ED and maintained that none of the employees were confined at the office and they were allowed to go home and come back. No statement was recorded at midnight, he added.

Observing that the manner in which the ED had exercised its powers is under question, the Bench decided to give an opportunity to the ED to file its details counter and posted the matter for coming Tuesday.