Amit Shah’s threat to those rejoicing over SC ruling on extension to Director, ED

Hours after the Supreme Court declared the third/fourth extension given to the Director, ED, as invalid on Tuesday, July 11, the union home minister Amit Shah issued an unusual threat on Twitter. Those rejoicing over the SC decision, he declared, were delusional because the court had upheld the government’s ordinance which empowered it to extend terms of CBI and ED directors to five years; and the powers given to the ED also remains, Shah pointed out.

He then ended his long tweet with a threat. “Who the ED director is, that is not important. Whoever assumes this role will take note of the rampant corruption of a cozy club of entitled dynasts who have an anti-development mindset,” read the tweet, which can be read here:

Pawan Khera, chairman of the media and publicity department at the Indian National Congress wondered why the home minister was commenting on an agency which reports to the finance ministry. Others felt that the tweet of Amit Shah indicated how upset the government was at the SC’s pronouncement.

Others were also quick to ask the minister why the extension was granted to Sanjay Kumar Mishra if the individual did not matter. Others reminded Amit Shah bureaucrats called this regime the ‘Extension Raj’ because it had granted extensions in service to its favourites. The terms of the IB chief, the Raw chief, the home secretary and a host of others were given extension after retirement, denying officers next in seniority the chance to head the agencies and organisations.

On a more brutal note, people wondered why the Enforcement Directorate had not attached the property of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), an unregistered organisation and inquired into its sources of revenue. How is it that the RSS, which is constructing a multi-storied office in the national capital, has escaped scrutiny by the ED, they wondered.

A few wanted the home minister to explain why inquiries by the ED and the Income Tax department against opposition leaders got mysteriously stalled once they joined the BJP? One of them complained of the harassment he faced with the Income Tax department repeatedly serving notices and asking him to explain the sources of funding a shopping complex he had built with his savings and bank loans. How many business ventures of BJP leaders are under scrutiny, he wondered.

The government had justified the extensions given to Sanjay Kumar Mishra as director, ED by pointing out that an Interpol review of money laundering, pending since 2020 because of the pandemic, is due this year. The Solicitor General had informed the Supreme Court that Mishra would not remain in office after November, 2023. But the court held that the extension was violative of an earlier SC order given in 2021 and hence invalid. The court had upheld the extension to Mishra but had ruled that the extension would be valid only till November, 2021.

Yesterday, however, the court allowed Mishra to continue in office till the end of July, 2023. Mishra, an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer (income tax) of the 1984 batch, was originally appointed on 19 November 2018 as director, ED. He was the first IRS officer to ever hold the position, which was held by IAS officers.

The government had also argued that Mishra had significant experience in the investigation wing of the income tax department, had served as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of

Finance, dealing with international taxation issues. He also had a tenure as Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs, under P. Chidambaram as the home minister. He is credited with having steered retrospective amendments during the tenure of Pranab Mukherjee as finance minister to undo Supreme Court judgments in the Vodafone international taxation case.