The Supreme Court has agreed to examine whether the Enforcement Directorate is a juristic person entitling it to file a writ petition before High Courts under Article 226 of the Constitution for enforcement of its rights.
A division bench comprising Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma issued a notice to ED on appeals filed by the governments of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, challenging an order passed by the Kerala High Court on September 26, 2025, upholding ED's locus to file writ petitions under Article 226. Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal represented Kerala. Senior advocates P. Wilson and Vikram Chowdhary appeared for Tamil Nadu government.
The Kerala High Court in its September 2025 order had upheld the stay on judicial inquiry ordered by the state government to investigate alleged attempts by central agencies, including the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Customs, to implicate Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and other political leaders in the UAE gold smuggling case.
The division bench comprising Justices Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Syam Kumar VM dismissed the state government's appeal against a 2021 interim order passed by a single-judge, which had stayed the judicial inquiry. The court observed that the commission of inquiry was only a fact-finding body and allowing it to proceed parallel to pending criminal proceedings under PMLA could potentially derail the course of justice.
The Justice VK Mohanan Commission was tasked to examine alleged jurisdictional overreach and political bias by central agencies, particularly the ED, in attempting to link the Chief Minister and other state officials to the gold smuggling case. Finding merit in the ED's contention, the single-judge issued an interim order staying the notification. It argued that the ED had no locus to maintain a writ petition and added that any grievance against the notification should have been raised by the Central government under Article 131 (Original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court) of the Constitution.
However, the ED stated that inquiries into matters under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA), both central legislations, fell within the powers of the Central government and not the state. After going through the submissions, the division bench observed that the ED had locus to maintain the writ petition and upheld the single-judge's interim order on September 26 last year. The ED is a department functioning under the control of the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, and it is an authority empowered under Section 49 of the PMLA to enforce the provisions of the said legislation.
Interestingly, the Supreme Court is seized of another petition by ED filed under Article 32 of the Constitution seeking registration of a CBI case against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. When that petition by ED was heard on January 15, the West Bengal government strongly opposed its maintainability saying that Article 32 is a remedy for individual citizens against government and government agencies cannot use the same.The Supreme Court nevertheless issued notice to Mamata Banerjee on that plea.
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