The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) is a law enforcement agency and economic intelligence agency responsible for enforcing economic laws and fighting economic crime in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. It is part of the Department of Revenue,

Ministry of Finance A ministry of finance is a part of the government in most countries that is responsible for matters related to the finance. Lists of current ministries of finance Named "Ministry" * Ministry of Finance (Afghanistan) * Ministry of Finance and Ec ...

, Government Of India. It is composed of officers from the

Indian Revenue Service The Indian Revenue Service (IAST: ), often abbreviated as IRS, is an Indian government agency that is primarily responsible for collecting and administering direct and indirect taxes. As a central civil service under Group A of the executiv ...

Indian Police Service The Indian Police Service ( IPS) is a civil service under the All India Services. It replaced the Indian Imperial Police in 1948, a year after India became independent from the British Raj. Along with the Indian Administrative Service (IAS ...

and the

Indian Administrative Service The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is the administrative arm of the All India Services of Government of India. Considered the premier civil service of India, the IAS is one of the three arms of the All India Services along with the Indian ...

as well as promoted officers from its own cadre. The origin of the ED goes back to 1 May 1956, when an ‘Enforcement Unit’ was formed, within the Department of Economic Affairs, for handling Exchange Control Laws violations under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947. In 1957, the unit was renamed as the ‘Enforcement Directorate’. Sanjay Kumar Mishra former Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, New Delhi was appointed as ED chief in the rank of Secretary to Government of India, from October 2018.

Objective

The prime objective of the Enforcement Directorate is the enforcement of two key Acts of the Government of India namely, the Foreign Exchange Management Act 1999 (FEMA) and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002 (PMLA) and The Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018 (FEOA). The Enforcement Directorate official website enlists its other objectives which are primarily linked to checking money laundering in India.

Organizational set up

The Directorate of Enforcement, with its headquarters at

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

, is headed by the director of enforcement. There are five regional offices at Mumbai, Chennai, Chandigarh, Kolkata and Delhi headed by special directors of enforcement. Zonal offices of the directorate are at Pune, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Kochi, Delhi, Panaji, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jalandhar, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Patna and Srinagar. These are headed by a joint director. The directorate has sub-zonal offices at Mangaluru, Bhubaneshwar, Kozhikode, Indore, Madurai, Nagpur, Allahabad, Raipur, Dehradun, Ranchi, Surat, Shimla, Vishakhapatnam and Jammu which are headed by a deputy director.

Special courts

For the

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of Party (law), parties to a :wikt:dispute, dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence (law), evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to Adjudication, adjudicate claims or d ...

of an offence punishable under section 4 of PMLA, the Central Government (in consultation with the chief justice of the High Court), designates one or more

Sessions Court A Sessions Court or even known as the Court of Sessions Judge is a court of law which exists in several Commonwealth countries. A Court of Session is the highest criminal court in a district and the court of first instance for trying serious offe ...

as Special Court(s). The court is also called "PMLA Court". Any appeal against any order passed by PMLA court can directly be filed in the High Court for that jurisdiction.

Criticism

In July 2022, according to data shared by the union government in Parliament, only 23 people have been convicted in 5,422 cases registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in the 17 years after the law was passed, which is a conviction rate of less than 0.5%. The cases by ED have gone up six times in

Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...

's second term, which led to accusations by opposition parties stating that ED is being misused by the BJP for their political ends.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Directorate General Of Economic Enforcement Executive branch of the government of India Financial crime prevention Ministry of Finance (India) Tax evasion in India 1956 establishments in India Government agencies established in 1956

Objective

Organizational set up

Special courts

Criticism

See also

References