Tamil Nadu on Monday gave its response in the Supreme Court which had questioned it for filing writ petitions before the Madras High Court against the summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate to five district collectors in connection with money laundering cases.The apex court continued to pull up the state for filing pleas challenging summons to collectors. It said that the state has to comply with the law enacted by parliament (PMLA). “Your officials should help the ED to find out if there are any offences,” the apex court observed.Senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, appearing for the TN govt, told the apex court that various judgements, including that of the Madanlal Chaudhary verdict, said that only if the offence is established can the central probe agency investigate a case against any accused anywhere in the country. “There is no offence made out by us. The ED’s jurisdiction is not that they should ask the officer to give informations on cases of so and so. There is no legal basis of saying that the state cannot file an appeal in the SC,” Sibal told the apex court’s two-judge bench, headed by Justice Bela M Trivedi and also comprising Justice Pankaj Mithal.Sibal also said that the collectors were not acting as individuals but as its representatives. “Is a district collector not a part of the state? Information was not sought from the collectors in an individual capacity. The state government is aggrieved by an order of the ED asking information from an authority of the state. Four collectors in four districts have been asked by the agency to furnish whatever information that has been sought. So we are aggrieved and thereby we could definitely come to SC,” Sibal told the SC.Opposing Sibal’s arguments, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju, appearing for the ED, told the apex court that the probe agency is entitled to investigate. He further said that the state is stepping into the shoes of the accused, preventing an investigation and trying to shield them.
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