By PTI
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to consider the listing of a plea challenging the amended law allowing the extension of tenure of the Director of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) up to five years, and the Centre’s decision to grant a one-year extension to Sanjay Kumar Mishra as head of the probe agency.
A bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli took note of the submission of a lawyer, appearing for Madhya Pradesh Congress leader Jaya Thakur, that he has filed the plea against the extension of tenure of the ED director by the Centre through an ordinance.
The plea also challenged the Central Vigilance Commission (Amendment) Act 2021 which provides for extension of the term of ED’s Director up to 5 years It referred to a verdict of September 8 last year in which the apex court while dealing with the PIL of NGO ‘Common Cause’ had upheld the Centre’s power to extend Mishra’s tenure as ED director but had clarified that extension of officers after the age of superannuation should be done only in rare and exceptional cases.
The CJI asked the court official to take the number of the petition for considering its listing for hearing.
The Centre on November 17, 2021 had extended the tenure of Mishra by a year till November 18, 2022, days after the Centre brought ordinances to allow ED and CBI directors to occupy the office up to five years.
Mishra is a 1984-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer of the Income Tax(IT) Department cadre.
Thakur’s plea noted that the ordinance to extend the tenure of Mishra was promulgated two days before his scheduled superannuation.
The ordinance was replaced with the Act in December last year.
The apex court in its September 8 judgement had said that a reasonable period of extension can be granted to facilitate the completion of ongoing investigations only after reasons are recorded by the Committee constituted under Section 25 (a) of the CVC Act.
It had also made it clear that no further extension can be given to Mishra.
The court had further stated that an extension of tenure of Director should be for a short period.
“We do not intend to interfere with the extension of tenure of the second Respondent (Mishra) in the instant case for the reason that his tenure is coming to an end in November, 2021.”
“We make it clear that no further extension shall be granted to the second respondent,” the bench had said.
