New Delhi: The Union government has finally found a replacement for Sanjay Kumar Mishra, who stepped down as the chief of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), by elevating special director Rahul Navin as its acting director. Navin will hold the charge till a regular director is appointed or until further orders, the late-night notification by a Department of Revenue said.

Navin, a 1993 batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, joined the ED in 2019 and was heading the Headquarters division of the ED that looks at all sensitive cases and intelligence inputs as well. Navin is the senior-most officer in the department and was said to enjoy a good working relationship with his predecessor, Mishra.

Director ED is appointed as per the Central Vigilance Commission Act, 2003. The committee comprises two vigilance commissioners and the secretaries of home, finance, and the department of personnel and training, with the central vigilance commissioner as chairperson.

The Centre had moved the Supreme Court on July 26 after the court verdict of July 11 curtailed Mishra’s tenure to July 31 instead of November 30. The Centre had said Mishra should be allowed to continue till October 15 because a country review of the UN’s Financial Action Task Force for India is currently underway. At the last hearing, the court had termed an earlier extension given to Mishra as being illegal and a violation of the Supreme Court’s 2021 judgement.

Mishra was appointed director in 2018 for two years but just before his term ended, his terms of service were modified to extend his tenure for another year. However, the Supreme Court while allowing the extension as being “rarest of rare”, had in September 2021 said no more extensions were to be given to the director.

The government, in order to overcome the 2021 SC judgement, went ahead and amended the Central Vigilance Commission Act amongst others to provide for yearly extensions up to a period of five years. Surprisingly, on July 11, when the court finally put its foot down, the government again moved court and managed to bargain another month and a half for Mishra citing a FATF review.

The FATF is an international terror-financing watchdog. At the last hearing, the government simply said the review is at a critical stage. It omitted to mention that it began earlier this year and will continue up to the end of 2024, well past the November 2023 retirement date that the government had in mind for Mishra.

The Centre told the court, “It is extremely essential that the Enforcement Directorate is in the state of full readiness during this period till on-site (visit in November.) During this period, agencies are often required to provide responses, statistics, case studies, etc., in short spans of time to provide a better understanding to assessment team…For this purpose, guidance and leadership at a very senior level is required…The intricacies of complex money laundering investigation may also need to be explained to them which can be done only by a person with hands-on experience…The present Director, Directorate of Enforcement has been engaged in the preparation of documents …since the beginning of the year 2020, accordingly, his continuation in this ardous and delicate process is essential”.

The ED has come under serious criticism for what is considered “witch hunting” against the opposition with its unbridled powers.

In the face of criticism, the ED maintains that it has a stellar track record.

According to its website, the agency has a conviction rate of 96%, politicians comprise only 3% of all cases and search warrants were issued in 8.99% of the cases.

But, the ‘conviction rate’ is based on 24 out of 25 cases in which a PMLA trial was completed. IANS quoting finance ministry sources reports that between 2018-19 and 2021-22, cases registered by ED rose by 505%, from 195 cases in 2018-19, to 1,180 in 2021-22. The number of searches the ED conducted rose by a huge 2,555% between 2004-14 and 2014-22. As per the finance ministry’s own data, 112 searches were carried out by the ED between 2004-14 resulting in attachment of proceeds of crime worth Rs 5,346 crore.

While the ED maintains its track record is stellar, questions regarding the role of the agency remain unanswered. For instance, how many cases has the investigation been completed so the trial can commence? How many cases have been registered and closed by way of discharge or quashing or acquittal? How many accused have been discharged after a complaint was filed in court? Of the properties attached, how many have been confiscated by the ED?

The ED had come in for a severe dressing down from the lower courts as well.

“The extraordinary pace with which the ED arrests [an] accused becomes not even a snail’s pace in conducting trials,” Mumbai sessions judge M.G. Deshpande had said in the Patra Chawl order involving Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut. “Once the applicant files bail applications, the ED takes at least three to four weeks or more to file their reply…in every matter, it is noticed that, ED takes very, very long time to reply [to] the simple applications filed by any accused.”

The judge said that in the past decade, the ED has not completed a trial in a single case. “Is ED not accountable for such modus operandi availed by them in not beginning and concluding a single trial?”

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