The Supreme Court, while hearing a plea from the Enforcement Directorate (ED), emphasized the importance of upholding citizens’ fundamental rights, even during the pursuit of financial crime investigations.
The remark came as the court frowned upon the agency’s petition seeking to transfer the Nagrik Apurti Nigam (NAN) scam case from Chhattisgarh to New Delhi.
A bench comprising Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan raised questions about the legal basis of the ED’s approach, particularly its decision to file a writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution — a provision designed to protect the fundamental rights of individuals, not institutions.
Article 32 guarantees the “Right to Constitutional Remedies,” empowering individuals to directly move the Supreme Court when their fundamental rights are violated, enabling the highest court to enforce those rights.
After the court highlighted this discrepancy, Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, representing the ED, sought permission to withdraw the plea. In response to Raju’s comment — “ED also has fundamental rights” — the bench quipped, “In a lighter vein, if ED has fundamental rights, it should also think about the fundamental rights of the people.”
The court allowed the withdrawal of the petition.
The ED had approached the Supreme Court after raising concerns about the misuse of anticipatory bail by former IAS officer Anil Tuteja, one of the prime accused in the Chhattisgarh-based NAN scam case.
The agency has also recently alleged that certain constitutional authorities in Chhattisgarh maintained contact with a High Court judge in an attempt to secure favorable judicial orders for the accused in the ongoing money laundering probe, which stems from the suspected multi-crore public distribution system (PDS) scam.
Besides seeking the transfer of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case out of Chhattisgarh, the ED had filed for the cancellation of anticipatory bail granted to several high-profile individuals allegedly involved in the case.
The roots of the controversy go back to 2019 when the ED registered a money laundering complaint, building on an FIR and chargesheet filed by the Chhattisgarh Police’s Economic Offences Wing and Anti-Corruption Bureau. The original case involved large-scale irregularities in the state’s civil supply system.
The scandal first came to light in February 2015 when Chhattisgarh’s anti-corruption bureau raided the offices of NAN — the state agency responsible for managing the public distribution system — and recovered unaccounted cash amounting to ₹3.64 crore.
Subsequent quality checks on rice and salt samples collected during the raids revealed that many of the food supplies were sub-standard and unfit for human consumption.
At the time, Anil Tuteja served as the chairperson of NAN, while Alok Shukla was the managing director.
