Supreme Court seeks response from Central government on plea challenging tenure extension of ED Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought the response of the Central government on a plea challenging the decision of the Central government to grant extension of tenure to the current Director of Enforcement Directorate (ED) Sanjay Kumar Mishra..A bench of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli issued notice to the Centre and posted the case for further consideration after 10 days."We issue notice on all the petitions. List after 10 days," the Court ordered..The Court was hearing at least 8 petitions filed by Congress and TMC leaders and others including Dr. Jaya Thakur, Randeep Singh Surjewala, Saket Gokhale, Mahua Moitra challenging the tenure extension. Krishna Chander Singh, Vineet Narain and Manoharlal Sharma were the other petitioners. .The petitioners contended that the Central government's decision to extend Mishra's tenure was in violation of top court's September 2021 verdict which ruled against more extensions to Mishra..In that verdict, the Supreme Court had affirmed an earlier judgement of the Central government dated November 13, 2020, which made retrospective revisions to Mishra's appointment order, increasing his term from two to three years.Mishra was first appointed as the ED Director for a two-year term in November 2018. The two-year term expired in November 2020. In May 2020, he had reached the retirement age of 60.However, on November 13, 2020, the Central Government issued an office order stating that the President had modified the 2018 order to the effect that a time of 'two years' was changed to a period of 'three years.' This was challenged at the Supreme Court by the NGO Common Cause.The Bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and BR Gavai held in September 2021 that the Central government has powers to make retrospective changes but it should be done only in the rarest of rare cases.The Court had also said that the tenure of Mishra, which was set to expire, cannot be extended further.After the Supreme Court's decision last year, the Central government brought in an ordinance amending the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) Act, empowering itself to extend the tenure of the ED Director up to five years.This has now been challenged before the top court..Read about Dr. Jaya Thakur's petition here.

Supreme Court seeks response from Central government on plea challenging tenure extension of ED Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra

Debayan Roy

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