Faced with the Supreme Court’s repeated refrain from cooperating with a Directorate of Enforcement (ED) probe into “illegal” sand mining, a defiant Tamil Nadu asked the court on February 26 to first declare that the Central probe agency has the power to investigate “any offence” in the country.
Appearing before a Bench of Justices Bela Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal, Tamil Nadu counsel, senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Amit Anand Tiwari, firmly said the ED had no jurisdiction under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to investigate sand mining.
They said the agency could not just summon five District Collectors under the PMLA and ask them to bring along their Aadhaar copies, passport size photos, list of sand mining sites, GPS coordinates of the mining sites, etc.
