NEW DELHI, 11 APRIL

The Supreme Court has said ED should also think of the fundamental rights of the people and frowned upon the agency's plea seeking the transfer of the Nagrik Apurti Nigam (NAN) scam case from Chhattisgarh to New Delhi.

A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan questioned the agency on how it had filed a writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution meant for individuals.

Article 32 of Constitution guarantees the "Right to Constitutional Remedies," empowering individuals to seek redressal from the Supreme Court for violations of their fundamental rights, allowing them to directly approach the court for enforcement of these rights.

Following the bench's remarks, additional solicitor general SV Raju sought its permission to withdraw the plea and said, "ED also has fundamental rights".

"In a lighter vein, if ED has fundamental rights, it should think about fundamental rights of people too," the bench said.

The court then allowed Raju to withdraw the plea.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) last year claimed former IAS officer Anil Tuteja misused the anticipatory bail granted to him in the case in Chhattisgarh.

The probe agency recently made a startling claim about some constitutional functionaries of Chhattisgarh being in touch with a high court judge to ensure judicial reliefs to some accused in the money laundering case stemming from the alleged multi-crore rupees NAN scam.

Aside from seeking the transfer of the PMLA case out of Chhattisgarh, the ED sought cancellation of the anticipatory bail granted to some high-profile accused persons in the money laundering case.

In 2019, the ED lodged the complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act based on the FIR and chargesheet filed by the Chhattisgarh police's economic offences wing and the anti-corruption bureau in the civil supply scam.

The alleged scam in the public distribution system (PDS) surfaced when the state's anti-corruption bureau raided some offices of NAN, the nodal agency for ensuring effective operation of the PDS system, in February 2015 and seized unaccounted cash totalling Rs 3.64 crore.

Many of the rice and salt samples collected during the raid were tested for their quality and were claimed to be sub-standard and unfit for human consumption.

While Tuteja was the chairperson of NAN, Shukla was the managing director.