CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has ordered the Enforcement Directorate (ED) not to take any further action based on its Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) against contractors and other suppliers of machineries, including excavators, in connection with the alleged illegal sand mining case.
A division bench of Justices M S Ramesh and Sunder Mohan passed the orders on Tuesday, on a batch of petitions filed by several persons, including the contractors — K Rethinam, P Karikalan and S Ramachandran — seeking to quash the ECIR registered by ED on September 11, 2023, for money laundering under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Importantly, the bench, besides ordering the ED to not take any further action, quashed the property attachment orders, holding that offences under the Mines and Minerals Act are not scheduled offences under the PMLA.
“The respondents (ED) shall not continue further action pursuant to the ECIR in so far as the petitioners are concerned till such time the statutory and other requirements that we have pointed out above are complied with,” the bench said in the order. It further quashed ED’s orders provisionally attaching certain properties of the petitioners.
The Enforcement Directorate had alleged that sand worth Rs 4,730 crore was illegally mined. It issued summons to the district collectors of Ariyalur, Karur, Thanjavur, Tiruchy, and Vellore, and several contractors and suppliers of machineries.
HC stay was vacated earlier by apex court
The collectors challenged the summons in the HC which stayed their operation after holding that the ED had been carrying out a ‘fishing expedition’ without having enough material to proceed with the case.
However, the stay was vacated by the SC, on ED appeals, and the officials were directed to appear before the ED. They later appeared for inquiry. Later, the contractors approached the HC seeking to quash the ECIR and attachment of their properties.