ED crossing all limits, says SC, stays probe into Tamil Nadu govt corp

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Thursday thrice said "ED is crossing all limits" and stayed the agency's investigation into alleged money laundering by TN State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) pursuant to a raid on its headquarters on March 6-8.

Appearing for the Tamil Nadu govt and Tasmac, senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Mukul Rohatgi and Amit Anand Tiwari told a bench of CJI B R Gavai and Justice A G Masih that ED had conducted an illegal raid on Tasmac when no predicate offence had been registered against it, adding that this struck at the root of federalism. They accused the agency of violating the right to privacy of employees by cloning the phones seized from them. "They should not use the data taken from the phones of employees," the counsel argued.

Additional solicitor general S V Raju tried to defend the raid and claimed huge amounts of money had been pocketed but the bench said ED could submit its stand in an affidavit in two weeks.