The Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the Centre over its decision to grant a third extension to Enforcement Directorate chief Sanjay Kumar Mishra, reported The Hindu.

“Is there no other person in the organisation who can do his job?” the court said. “Can one person be so indispensable? Is there no one else in ED who is competent? What will happen post-2023, when he does retire?”

A bench of Justices BR Gavai, Vikram Nath, and Sanjay Karol was hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the extensions granted to Mishra. Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, Congress leader Randeep Surjewala and others are among the petitioners.

Mishra was first appointed as the Enforcement Directorate director for a period of two years on November 19, 2018. In 2020, his tenure was extended for a year by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government.

Subsequently, in September 2021, the Supreme Court directed the government not to extend Mishra’s tenure any further.

In November 2021, the government brought in two ordinances to ensure that the directors of the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation could have tenures of up to five years. This enabled Mishra to continue for another year.

In November 2022, the government again extended the 1984-batch Indian Revenue Service officer’s tenure for another year.

On Wednesday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, argued that the extension was necessitated to ensure continuity in leadership as India has to undergo a peer review by the global terror financing watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force, later this year.

“A person interacting with FATF is best suited to deal with them,” Mehta told the court, according to the Hindustan Times. “Sometimes, continuity is needed when you are dealing with world bodies.”

Mehta also told the court that the petitioners belong to political parties whose leaders were facing serious charges from the Enforcement Directorate, according to Live Law.

“In one of the cases, we had to bring a cash counting machine because there was so much money recovered from them,” he told the court. “Would this court want to entertain petitions at the behest of those who want to pressurise the Enforcement Directorate?”

However, Justice Gavai asked whether people could be stopped from filing petitions for the sole reason that they belong to political parties.

“The public interest lies in the fact that despite a specific mandamus issued by this court directing that a particular person would not be granted any further extension, the government has granted him an extension,” he said.

Under Mishra’s tenure, the Enforcement Directorate has launched investigations against several Opposition leaders such as Congress’ Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi, Trinamool Congress’ Abhishek Banerjee, Nationalist Congress Party leaders Sharad Pawar, Ajit Pawar, Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik, National Conference leaders Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah as well as former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, among others.

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