Allowing the Enforcement Directorate to proceed with its probe into alleged illegal sand mining in Tamil Nadu, the Madras high court, however, stayed on Tuesday the summons issued by the agency to five district collectors to question them in connection with its investigation.
A division bench comprising Justices S S Sundar and Sundar Mohan granted the interim stay on the petition filed by state public department secretary K Nanthakumar.
The ED, which is probing 'illegal' sand mining under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act apprised the court that it is in possession of credible scientific evidence.
Such evidence established rampant illegal mining in the jurisdiction of various district collectors including the five officials to whom summons had been issued.
The bench said the ED can go ahead with its probe into the alleged sand mining in the state.
The top public department official filed the plea on behalf of the district collectors of Ariyalur, Vellore, Thanjavur, Karur and Tiruchirapalli.
The petition sought to quash the summons issued by the ED which asked them to appear in person on various dates with details related to sand mining in their respective districts.
Directing the state government and the five district collectors to file their reply affidavit to the objection petition filed by the ED, the bench posted to December 21, further hearing of the case.
On November 27, the bench reserved orders, after hearing arguments of senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for the state government and Additional solicitor general A R L Sunderesan for the ED.
In his petition, Nanthakumar submitted the ED has resorted to a 'fishing and roving' enquiry and issued summons to district collectors, seeking information on all sand mines in their district.
The senior official said sand, a minor mineral, is a subject matter under the Constitution over which the state exercises exclusive power. Therefore, the ED was not entitled to enquire and investigate into the subject matter or matter connected therewith, he added.
Objecting to the ground of a fishing and roving enquiry, the ED said that it was an assumption and it is false.
On the contrary, the Directorate said it is in direct possession of enough crucial evidence of proceeds of crime generated out of criminal activity.
It is necessary to examine such district collectors in the course of their investigation on the criminal activity that has happened in their jurisdictions.
The evidence collected includes those obtained following conduct of LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and Bathymetric surveys (measuring depth of water body and mapping features of a water body). Also, it includes use of drones and satellite imagery processing.
The ED said, hence it was 'perplexing' the state government itself has filed this writ to protect the various accused persons who have cheated the state exchequer.
Instead of assisting the ED to investigate the offence and related money laundering, "the state government has been repeatedly attempting to stonewall the investigation, for the reasons best known to them," the agency had said.
