Trinamool’s Mahua Moitra moves Supreme Court against tenure of agency chiefs
Attack on impartiality of agencies, Moitra said.
Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra has moved the Supreme Court against the Centre’s ordinances to extend the tenure of the directors of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED). She argued that this is an attack on the impartiality of these central investigating agencies.
Moitra in her plea said that the Centre’s ordinances “attack independence and impartiality of CBI and ED” and give the Centre “unfettered discretion to pick and choose those Directors for the purposes of extension of tenure who act in line with the Government’s preferences”. She added that the ordinances “allow the Central Government to effectively control an incumbent ED Director or CBI Director by wielding the power to extend the tenures of these Directors in ‘public interest’.”
The petition challenges the constitutional validity of the Centre’s ordinances, saying that it is contrary to a Supreme Court judgement in September. In that judgment on a plea filed by an NGO against extension of tenure for ED Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra, the Court had upheld the decision of the Central government to make retrospective changes to his appointment order by which his tenure was increased from two years to three years. But the court had held that the tenure of a Director of Enforcement cannot be extended beyond his date of superannuation except in “rare and exceptional cases” for a “short period”.
Mahua Moitra said in her petition that Centre’s ordinances do not fulfil the criteria of “short period” and “rare cases” as prescribed in the judgement and Centre cannot nullify a Supreme Court judgement by issuing an ordinance.
The ordinances have been criticised by the Opposition that has alleged that the Centre is using probe agencies to harass its political rivals.
The heads of these two central agencies earlier had a two-year tenure, but it can now be extended up to five years. They can be given three extensions of a year each after they complete their two-year terms. ED director Sanjay Kumar Mishra, who was to retire today, was given a year’s extension.
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