New Delhi: The Supreme Court’s amicus curiae K.V. Viswanathan has said that the amendment introduced by the Union government to extend the tenure of Enforcement Directorate chief Sanjay Kumar Mishra should be scrapped in the interest of democracy.The Supreme Court has reserved its judgment on petitions by opposition leaders challenging the Narendra Modi government’s extensions of Mishra’s tenure and also the Central Vigilance Commission (Amendment) Act, 2021.The Economic Times has reported that Viswanathan said in court that the extensions in the tenure granted to Mishra were “invalid.”The court had earlier hauled up the Union government for asserting that there was no one better than Mishra to do the job in a year when India was to undergo a peer review by the Financial Action Task Force.LiveLaw has reported that Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta appeared to reiterate the Union government’s original objection that the public interest litigations filed by members of political parties should be dismissed.“Please do not repeat that argument,” Justice Gavai said, later adding, “Let this not be converted into a political platform.”Amicus curiae Viswanathan had also appealed to the court bench to exclude the aspect relating to the political affiliations or the politics surrounding the petitioners, the report said.SG Mehta sought to impress that the position of the director of the Enforcement Directorate was not a ‘promotional’ post and that he is selected from a panel and that vigilance commissioners also take a call on it.“One person continuing will not take away the chance of the next below. There is no next below the director. The additional director and joint director will not get automatically promoted,” Mehta said, to stress that the judicial review should differ in this case from a situation where someone who is “next in line” approaches that court.Mehta also repeated that Mishra’s leadership could make a big difference, especially in light of the FATF peer review.By an order on November 19, 2018, Mishra was first appointed the ED director for a period of two years. His term would expire in November 2020. In May that year, he reached the retirement age of 60. But through an office order on November 13, 2020, his appointment letter was modified retrospectively by the Union government and Mishra’s term of two years was altered to ‘three years.’In September 2022, the Supreme Court bench of Justice L. Nageswara Rao upheld the extension, saying that such retroactive revisions are only allowed in the “rarest of rare cases” but that no further extension can be given to Mishra.Several petitioners challenged this 2020 order, among with two 2021 ordinances promulgated three days before Mishra’s retirement date, amending the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, and the Central Vigilance Commission Act, 2003. Bills from these ordinances led to the legalisation of the extension of tenures of the CBI and ED chiefs for a year at a time till five years.Last year, 2022, Mishra was given another extension. This latest – and third – extension and the amendments to the CVC Act have been challenged afresh.
