Madras High Court extends interim stay on ED proceedings against TN minister Anitha Radhakrishnan

The Madras High Court recently extended the interim stay on the Enforcement Directorate (ED) proceedings against Tamil Nadu Fisheries Minister Anitha Radhakrishnan in a case of money laundering [Anitha R Radhakrishnan v The Directorate of Enforcement and another]. .In an order passed on December 15, a bench of Justices PN Prakash and N Anand Venkatesh extended the interim stay and posted the matter for further hearing on January 30, 2023. Radhakrishnan approached the Court in June this year seeking that all the proceedings against him before the ED be quashed. As per the ED, while serving as an MLA of Tiruchendur Assembly Constituency and subsequently as a Minister for Housing and Urban Development Department between the years 2002 and 2006, Radhakrishnan acquired assets to the tune of over ₹26 crores disproportionate to his known sources of income. The case is pending before the court of Principal District and Sessions Judge, Thoothukudi. Before the High Court, the minister argued that while the case against him was filed under the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, ED filed the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) on December 22, 2020, on the premise that the offences alleged in the Department of Vigilance and Anti-corruption FIR were scheduled offences under the PMLA. However, the central agency failed to note that Section 13 of the PC Act was made a part of scheduled offences under the PMLA in June 2009. Hence, the charge against him was not a scheduled offence when the Act came into force in July 2005, Radhakrishnan argued..In October 2022, the Supreme Court had revived an interim stay that the High Court had granted in June last year on the ED proceedings. The apex court had also directed the High Court to dispose of the case on merits as expeditiously as possible. Following this, the bench of Justice PN Prakash and Justice Anand Venkatesh had begun hearing the matter. However, last week, the Court noted that since one of the judges on the bench would be retiring on January 11, the case cannot be disposed of within the time frame set by the apex court. "Since one of us [Justice PN Prakash] is retiring shortly, we are unable to take up the final disposal of this case as directed by the Apex Court as the Additional Solicitor General has to be heard in detail on all the legal issues raised by the learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner. That apart, the interim order of stay that has been granted by the Apex Court expires on 19.12.2022 and since we are satisfied that the petitioner has raised substantial legal issues which require a thorough consideration and determination and that the Enforcement Directorate has also provisionally attached some of the properties of the petitioner, we are inclined to continue the interim order of stay that was granted by this court earlier. Accordingly, the interim order of stay granted by this court on 29.06.2022 till further orders," the Court said.[Read Order]