BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court has said that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is not a "super cop" empowered to investigate anything and everything that comes to its notice.
The court observed that allowing the ED to file a private complaint when other competent government agencies decide not to initiate proceedings would amount to giving it powers beyond those envisaged under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
"ED is not empowered to file a private complaint under Section 200 of CrPC, now Section 223 of the BNSS, when the competent investigating agencies did not act on the information shared by it under Section 66(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act", the court noted.
Justice M I Arun made the observations while allowing a batch of petitions filed by Malur Congress MLA K Y Nanjegowda, chairman of the Kolar and Chikkaballapur Milk Union Ltd (KOMUL), its former director Y B Ashwathanarayana and three others.
The petitioners had challenged an ED complaint registered in November 2023, an order of the Adjudicating Authority confirming the seizure of articles, summons issued to them and a private complaint filed by the ED before a special court in Bengaluru.
The case originated from a private complaint filed by K C Rajanna before a trial court in Kolar, alleging that the Malur Land Grant Committee, headed by Nanjegowda, had illegally allotted around 80 acres of land to 38 people. Treating the alleged land scam as a predicate offence, the ED registered a case in 2023.
During its searches, the ED found material indicating alleged irregularities in appointments made by KOMUL, which came to be described as a job scam. It shared the information with the Lokayukta police.
Meanwhile, the local police filed a closure report in the land scam case. The trial court dismissed the report for want of sanction to prosecute the public servants concerned. After the Lokayukta police did not act on the information shared by the ED, the agency filed a private complaint in the job scam case before a special court.
The High Court said Section 66(2) of the PMLA requires the ED to inform the concerned agency if it comes across violations of other laws during an investigation, rather than investigate those offences on its own.
"If we were to accept the contention of the ED in the instant case, it would amount to concluding that the jurisdictional police and the sanctioning authority are guilty of dereliction of their respective duties and the ED alone is correct. Similarly, in the job scam case, it amounts to presuming the Lokayukta police or agency, who have not proceeded against the accused by not initiating any criminal proceedings based on the information provided by the ED, are guilty of dereliction of their respective duties and putting the ED on a higher pedestal, which is not contemplated in law", the court observed.
The court also pointed out that the Constitution envisages a separation of powers among different organs of the government to prevent any one institution from becoming supreme and abusing its authority. It said the law provided for checks and balances among institutions.
The ED is not a super cop to investigate anything and everything that comes to its notice, the court added.
