CHENNAI: Senior officials at the Water Resources Department (WRD) are at the receiving end of the ‘long arm’ of the Enforcement Directorate as the probe on illegal sand mining in Tamil Nadu continues unabated. While speaking to TNIE with a request to be anonymous, they claimed that ED sleuths were ensnaring them.
Ever since September 12, the directorate has been searching sand quarries, contractors’ offices, and houses, without any pause. It has also sealed a part of the WRD chief engineer’s office in Chepauk, where sand quarry officials work and records are maintained. At one stage, ED sleuths summoned WRD engineers based in Chennai, Vellore, Villupuram and Tiruchy, including A Muthiah, engineer in chief and chief engineer general.
“ED officials regularly summon engineers to appear at their Nungambakkam office at 10.30 am. Despite arriving promptly with records, they were made to wait till midnight. In between, if the engineers wanted to go outside or have tea, one of the ED officials trailed them. To avoid this embarrassment, officials remained seated for long hours,” a senior WRD official told TNIE.
A few investigators sat in front of the engineers while others stood around their chairs like “bouncers”. Engineers were at times denied lunch by ED officials while some facing late-evening inquiries were allowed to go home only by midnight, they alleged. TNIE reached out to ED officials for comments, but there was no response.
The WRD staff, mostly group-one officers, also wondered why the government remained indifferent to their plight while it moved the court against summons on district collectors. Another WRD official highlighted the absence of legal officers in the department for three decades. Despite pleas to the state government, legal positions remained unfilled. After the ED raid, a contract lawyer was assigned to the department.
He also said, “The WRD is ready to provide records according to Section 54 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, which empowers and requires various regulators and authorities to assist in the enforcement of the Act. However, the ED summoned engineers under Section 50 of PMLA. It allows to issue summons to a person and requires the production of documents and record statements.”