How Tamil Nadu government turned the tables on ED

An eight kilometre chase down the Madurai-Dindigul highway. Officials of the Tamil Nadu Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) were behind a man zooming ahead in a TATA Altroz car. When the man was finally captured, it turned out to be Ankit Tiwari, an officer of the Union government's dreaded Enforcement Directorate. Ankit’s arrest on December 1, a hostile raid on the ED office, and the legal battle that followed has pitted the Tamil Nadu government, headed by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s M K Stalin, against the Union government’s might.States ruled by parties opposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have to often fight not just the regime, but also its extended arms such as the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Income Tax department, and the Enforcement Directorate. This fight became quite literal in West Bengal, where a mob attacked an ED team with sticks and machetes when they tried to raid the house of Trinamool Congress leader Shahjahan Sheik. Tamil Nadu, on the other hand, has used a more surgical approach..Ankit, a techie-turned-ED officer posted in Madurai district, was apprehended after a high-speed chase on the Madurai-Dindigul highway, after the DVAC caught him red-handed accepting a bribe of Rs 20 lakh from one Dr Suresh Babu. The operation was so meticulously planned and executed that the ED officials, who initially refused to cooperate, were forced to file a formal case against their own officer.The DVAC officials, who had prior intelligence about the exchange, had given the doctor currency notes laced with the chemical phenolphthalein. They later chased Ankit down and found the currency in the boot of his TATA Altroz car, and the alkaline test showed traces of the chemical. In that moment, the whole game of raids and traps came full circle.DVAC’s dramatic searchesWhat followed hours after Ankit’s arrest was astounding. For the first time in the history of Tamil Nadu, a team of DVAC officers entered the Zonal Office of the ED to carry out searches. They raided Ankit’s residence and office and recovered incriminating documents from his computer. The ED termed the raids illegal and lodged two complaints with the Director General of Police (DGP), Tamil Nadu, to register an FIR against the DVAC officials for trespassing and theft of documents.DVAC sources said that the searches at Ankit Tiwari’s office yielded proof of how the ED officer was targeting his victims. They recovered a list containing names of 65 individuals from Ankit’s computer. Among them was Dr Suresh Babu, the Chief House Surgeon at Dindigul Government Hospital, and details of an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) registered against him.Police alleged Ankit was maintaining a list of people with cases pending against them, and was trying to establish contact and demand bribes. Further investigations by the DVAC suggest that the ED officer allegedly received bribes from at least four other people in a similar manner, though none of them have come forward to lodge a complaint.How Ankit Tiwari landed in DVAC trap As per DVAC’s First Information Report (FIR) dated November 30, 2023, Dr Suresh Babu received a call from an unknown WhatsApp number around 8.04 pm on October 29, 2023. The caller, who identified himself as an ED officer, asked the doctor to present himself at the central agency’s zonal office in Madurai as part of an investigation into his disproportionate assets case. The case, which was initially opened by the DVAC in 2018 over some alleged assets to the tune of Rs 2.8 crore, was dropped for lack of evidence.When Dr Suresh Babu visited the ED Madurai Zonal office on October 30, 2023, he was made to wait after entering his details in the entry register. He then received a call on WhatsApp and was asked to step out of the office, where a person who introduced himself as Hardik, an ED officer, entered the car with him. Ankit Tiwari, pretending to be Hardik, allegedly told the doctor that the ED had received instructions from the Prime Minister’s Office to investigate the disproportionate assets case that was registered by the DVAC. The ED had registered an ECIR against Dr Suresh Babu and his wife R Srinivasa Preetha, who runs a private hospital in Dindigul, on March 6, 2020.Ankit allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs 3 crore from him to not pursue the case, and informed him that the money was not for him but for his superior officers. After Dr Suresh Babu expressed his inability to give Rs 3 crore, the man spoke to someone over the phone and then reduced the bribe demand to Rs 51 lakh. He asked for it to be delivered by November 1, 2023. According to police sources, the entire conversation between the ED officer and Dr Suresh Babu negotiating the bribe amount has been recorded on the dash camera fitted in the doctor’s car.. On October 31, 2023, Dr Suresh Babu received another call from the same WhatsApp number. This time, he was asked to come to a location on the Natham to Madurai highway. Carrying Rs 20 lakh with him, the doctor reached the spot along with his driver. The money was delivered to the ED officer on the Natham to Madurai highway, and Dr Suresh promised to pay the rest of the bribe money the week after. Dr Suresh’s car dash cam has also recorded his driver, Arvind, carrying the bag filled with cash and keeping it in the ED officer’s car.On November 1, 2023, Ankit allegedly called Dr Suresh and told him that his superior officers had pulled him up for not collecting the entire amount and wanted the remaining Rs 31 lakh to be handed over by November 8, 2023. Under pressure, Dr Suresh Babu arranged another Rs 20 lakh and contacted him on November 14. But the ED officer sent a message on WhatsApp that he was unwell and would collect the money later. The FIR says Ankit contacted Dr Suresh Babu again on November 21, to tell him he was busy with some other investigation related to sand mining in Tamil Nadu. He also allegedly inquired if the doctor had any contacts with hawala operators. When Dr Suresh responded negatively, Ankit said he would collect the money when he visits Dindigul next. He also told the doctor not to reveal this to anyone and warned him of severe consequences, threatening him that the ED was capable of arresting him and his wife, which would in turn malign the image of the hospital run by his wife. On November 29, the ED officer called Dr Suresh Babu again and demanded the remaining bribe amount of Rs 31 lakh. Ankit said he wanted the money delivered to him, and the doctor promised to give it to him on November 30 or December 1. But by now, Dr Suresh had had enough. He lodged a complaint with the DVAC officials on November 30, and the state government agency immediately laid a trap for the ED officer, Ankit Tiwari.DVAC officials were present in the vicinity of where the money exchange was to happen and caught him red-handed. DVAC sources said that up until this point, they didn't know the identity of the ED officer. He was identified as Ankit Tiwari only later. When he was spotted by state police officials, he fled from the spot in his car, and he was chased for nearly eight kilometres by the DVAC team before they could nab him.A DVAC source privy to details of the investigation told TNM this was a clear case of a vigilance trap. The doctor who was threatened by the ED officer was growing scared, and he got in touch with the DVAC officials who probed his case to check the status of his disproportionate assets case. “This was how the DVAC got to know about the issue,” he said, adding that the DVAC decided to act when the doctor said he was willing to lodge a complaint.“The doctor had documented every call and conversation he had with the ED officer, which helped the DVAC build a water tight case against Ankit Tiwari,” the source said.DVAC raids ED office Hours after Ankit Tiwari’s arrest, the DVAC officials conducted searches at his residence and the ED office in Madurai. Sources in the know said that as this was a big move, the team had ‘political clearance’ from the highest level to carry out the search. A team of officers led by M Sathyaseelan, Madurai Deputy Superintendent of Police of DVAC, arrived at the sub-zonal ED office located on P&T Nagar Main Road in Madurai for the raid.Upon reaching the ED office at 2.40 pm, the DVAC team was attended by an Assistant Enforcement Officer and was taken to the first floor to the office of Brijesh Beniwal, Assistant Director of the ED’s Madurai zone. They first refused to grant permission to conduct searches at Ankit Tiwari’s office, and the DVAC team was made to wait at the reception. The DVAC team was then informed that Ravish Bharadwaj, ED’s Deputy Director who is in Chennai, was on his way to Madurai and would deal with them upon his arrival. The DVAC team waited till 6 pm but did not get permission to conduct the search, so they decided to proceed with the search without ED’s consent. According to the seizure report, Brijesh Beniwal then stood along with the staff blocking the entry door, while some other staff members closed the door that led to the room of the accused officer.“We negotiated with them. However, they were very stubborn and prevented us from entering the office. So we took up the assistance of the local police with their cameraman, opened the front door at about 6.07 pm, and entered the hall. Then, as per the instruction of Brijesh Beniwal, the staff, who initially objected to the entry, started to cooperate with us,” read the report.The search lasted for more than 16 hours, with the DVAC officials entering the ED office around 2.40 pm on December 1 and wrapping up the raid by around 6.45 am on December 2. According to DVAC, a team of ED officers including Brijesh Beniwal were present when Ankit Tiwari’s room was searched. The ED officials who signed the Magazar document (proof of procedures observed) mentioned in the document that they were signing it ‘under protest’, and accused the DVAC of conducting the searches in an unprofessional and illegal manner.The searches at the ED office in Madurai set alarm bells ringing at the central agency’s headquarters. To contain further damage, central forces including ITBP personnel were deployed to secure ED offices in Madurai and its regional headquarters in Chennai. While the DVAC said that ED officers were present during the entirety of the search, the ED claimed that the DVAC officials closed the room many times while conducting searches in Ankit Tiwari’s office. The ED also accused the DVAC of accessing sensitive case records and case files that have no relation to the alleged Dr Suresh Babu case. “[The DVAC] accessed the sensitive case records, information and internal documents of the ED related to other cases that have no link with the alleged case. The room of Ankit Tiwari was locked intermittently during this search; therefore, the search team consisting of unauthorised persons were having access to records of the ED in private,” the ED said in a complaint to the DGP. The ED also urged the Tamil Nadu Police to register an FIR against DVAC officials and claimed that 35 persons were present inside their office during the search and their identities were unknown. “Whether they are police or private parties, Whether anyone has vested interests in any ED case is also not known. There are many cases which require the protection of witnesses since the ED is investigating many powerful persons in the state,” ED said in the complaint.But what has made matters worse for the ED is the presence of local leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the ED office during the DVAC raids. Madurai BJP’s legal wing president Iyyaparaj and vice-president Ganeshan were seen entering the office when the search was underway, and continued to stay put till the DVAC teams left. . Ankit Tiwari’s arrest by the DVAC is being seen as a countermeasure by the DMK government, which has been facing ED heat for a while now. The ED and the TN government have been at loggerheads over the arrest of a sitting DMK Minister Senthil Balaji, searches and summoning of former Tamil Nadu Higher Education Minister Ponmudi, and the ED’s move to assist DVAC in the disproportionate assets case trial against DMK Minister Anita Radhakrishnan. According to sources in the Tamil Nadu government, the ED’s investigation into sand mining in the state had also rattled the bureaucracy and government employees. The ED had summoned the Chief and Executive Engineers of the Water Resources Department and recorded their statements regarding mining and sale of sand in Tamil Nadu. The ED also issued summons to five district collectors and were in the process of summoning a top bureaucrat from the Water Resources Department (WRD). Though the Madras High Court has stayed the summons to district collectors, there is constant pressure on the administration.ED vs DVAC in courtThe ED vs DVAC drama, which unfolded on the streets of Madurai, soon shifted to the courts after a public interest litigation was filed in the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court by a person named J Vivek, seeking the court’s intervention to transfer the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).The petitioner argued that the DVAC is not a competent authority to investigate the case as the accused is a “Central Government Officer” and it has to be transferred to the CBI. After hearing both sides of the argument, Justices M Sundar and R Sakthivel ruled that the DVAC had the powers to investigate the case and that the allegations against the erring officer were serious in nature.Later, during Ankit Tiwari’s bail petition hearing at the Madras High Court, the state government made the startling revelation that some of the high-ranking officials of the Enforcement Directorate are allegedly part of the bribery transactions, and that the DVAC is in the process of investigating the role of other ED officers too. The state government’s Public Prosecutor (PP) also informed the court that a list of 65 names has been recovered from the accused laptop, and an investigation is underway to ascertain if there are more victims in this case.Justice V Sivagnanam, of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, dismissed Ankit’s bail plea. In its order, the court recorded the arguments made by PP Hasan Mohammed Jinnah that the DVAC is suspecting the involvement of some other higher officials of the ED in this case, which would require further investigation.ED prosecuting its own While the ED was pressuring the Tamil Nadu police to register an FIR against DVAC officials for what the ED calls an “illegal search and criminal trespass,” the Tamil Nadu police escalated the matter further by registering another FIR against ED officials. This FIR, which named ED officers including Brijesh Beniwal, was on the charge of preventing DVAC officials from discharging their duties. A summons was subsequently issued to the ED officials, asking them to appear before the Tallakulam police at 11 am on December 26.The ED officials, however, did not appear before the police, and instead claimed that they received the summons in the afternoon, after the allotted date and time for the appearance had already lapsed. The ED also questioned the context in which the summons were being issued to its officials.In the meantime, the ED has also registered a money laundering case against Ankit Tiwari based on the FIR registered against him by the DVAC. Sources said the ED would soon begin its investigation in connection with this case, and would be issuing summons to those involved in this case including the DVAC officials. A senior advocate who spoke to TNM pointed out that there was a problem with the ED conducting an investigation into a case in which one of their own is the accused. “How can they investigate the involvement of their own top officials? There will be conflict of interest. It is not a good precedent,” he said.Though the Enforcement Directorate so far had an upper hand in setting a narrative in Tamil Nadu by taking up cases linked to key DMK ministers, it is now finding itself in the midst of a credibility crisis, with questions being asked as to what action has been taken against Ankit Tiwari.A senior journalist who has been covering central agencies for almost two decades said that tensions have never escalated to this level between central and state agencies. “There have been instances where officers belonging to central agencies have been arrested, but conducting searches at the ED was unheard of, and I have a feeling that this is not going to end well,” he said.