In a rare but significant rebuke, the Supreme Court of India on Wednesday sent a clear and unambiguous message to the Enforcement Directorate (ED): Enough is enough. The apex court stayed further proceedings in the agency’s probe against Tamil Nadu’s state-run liquor corporation, TASMAC, and questioned the very legality and logic behind pursuing a corporate entity under provisions that typically pertain to individual criminal culpability.
The verbal lashing was as damning as it was unprecedented. “Your ED is passing all limits!” the Chief Justice reportedly said, directing the agency to hold off until the matter is heard after the vacation. The court’s order, issued without a moment’s delay, is not just a procedural stay—it is an institutional indictment of how India’s premier economic intelligence agency has been weaponised, politicised, and rendered a blunt tool in the ruling party’s ever-expanding war against its opponents.
From Accountability to Intimidation
What began years ago as a legitimate institution tasked with probing money laundering and economic crimes has, under the Modi regime, mutated into a coercive arm of the executive. From opposition leaders to state-run bodies, the ED’s widening net often appears to correlate less with actual evidence of financial wrongdoing and more with political expediency. The TASMAC case, as it now stands, illustrates how deep the rot has set in.
TASMAC is a state-owned enterprise. Its accounts, operations, and bureaucratic procedures are subject to oversight by multiple layers of government. If irregularities exist, there are routine statutory mechanisms to examine and resolve them. Yet the ED—acting with an aggression usually reserved for mafia dons and international money launderers—moved in with sweeping raids, seizure of data, and full digital cloning of systems, including personal devices. This kind of operation against a government-run corporation has raised not just eyebrows but constitutional questions about federalism and procedural overreach.
It’s one thing for the ED to pursue money trails involving private corporations or individuals. It is entirely another to treat a state government’s entity like a criminal enterprise—without first exhausting administrative, audit, or regulatory remedies. By effectively putting an entire state enterprise under criminal suspicion, the agency is treading dangerously close to invalidating the very structure of India’s federal democracy.
A Pattern of Selective Persecution
The targeting of TASMAC must be viewed within the broader pattern of the ED’s functioning under the Modi government. In state after state not ruled by the BJP, the ED has launched dramatic raids and investigations against sitting chief ministers, opposition parties, and state institutions. From Jharkhand to Delhi, from West Bengal to Chhattisgarh, the message has been chillingly consistent: Any dissenting voice is vulnerable to a knock on the door.
That such action is almost never seen in BJP-ruled states—despite glaring corruption allegations—is a fact too stark to ignore. The selectivity is not accidental. It is structural. It is designed to serve both as a political battering ram and a media spectacle.
Consider the case of Gujarat, the Prime Minister’s home state. Multiple investigative reports, including those from India’s own audit agencies, have flagged large-scale financial irregularities in public procurement, land allotment, and infrastructure contracts. And yet, the ED’s radar remains mysteriously blank. Meanwhile, in Tamil Nadu—a state with a robust history of political opposition to Hindutva ideology—the ED’s surveillance is relentless.
The Judiciary as Last Line of Defence
Wednesday’s intervention by the Supreme Court is perhaps the most significant pushback the ED has faced in recent years. Not because it was unprecedented for courts to question the agency’s methods, but because this time, the concern came directly from the highest bench of the country and without any ambiguity.
By questioning the very rationale of investigating a corporation under provisions meant for individuals, the court exposed the incoherence in the ED’s logic. By granting a stay, it signalled that due process cannot be bypassed simply because a central agency deems it politically convenient.
However, such interventions, while welcome, are only palliative. The structural impunity granted to the ED—bolstered by legislative changes, lack of accountability mechanisms, and the blanket shield provided by a compliant media ecosystem—remains unaddressed. Unless the Supreme Court uses this moment to enforce systemic corrections, the agency will remain a sword of Damocles over Indian federalism and democracy.
The Bigger Picture
India is at a dangerous crossroads. The lines between investigation and intimidation, between oversight and overreach, are not just being blurred—they are being erased. Central agencies like the ED, CBI, and IT department are increasingly functioning not as arms of the state but as extensions of the ruling party.
In such a scenario, every court order that reins them in is not merely a procedural safeguard—it is a political and constitutional imperative. For far too long, institutional silence has enabled the erosion of India’s democratic fabric. The events of this week suggest that the judiciary may finally be waking up to the consequences of that silence.
The ED’s conduct in the TASMAC case was not just a legal misstep. It was a political gambit. That it has now been challenged at the highest level offers a rare glimmer of hope—for accountability, for federal balance, and for the restoration of the rule of law.
