CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government and state-run Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) have filed petitions in the Madras High Court against the proceedings of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), following its recent raids held in multiple premises of Tasmac and other related entities.
The petitions, seeking to stay the ED’s action initiated under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and direction to not harass any officials and employees of Tasmac, have been listed for hearing before the bench of Justices MS Ramesh and N Senthilkumar on Thursday.
The petitions have also prayed for declaring the power of ED – so far as it relates to investigation, inquiry of an offence of money laundering in relation to a predicate offence arising out of and within the territorial limits of the state without the consent of the state concerned – as violative of federalism and separation of powers and declare that such investigations can be carried out by the ED only at the request of the state agencies, government or by directions of constitutional courts.
The petitions sought the court to declare that search and seizure proceedings held under Section 17 of the PMLA from March 6 to 8 in Tasmac and other related premises as without jurisdiction, and illegal and arbitrary.
The ED, after holding the search operations, had said that incriminating data relating to transfer postings, transport tender, bar licence tender, indent orders favouring a few distilleries and excess charge of Rs 10-Rs 30 per bottle were recovered.
It also said it had unearthed that distilleries and bottling companies generated illicit revenue of Rs 1,000 crore through bogus or inflated transactions and used this money for kickbacks to secure more orders from the Tasmac.