New Delhi: A Supreme Court bench headed by Justice L.N. Rao on Monday issued notices to the Centre, Enforcement Directorate director Sanjay Kumar Mishra and the Central Vigilance Commission while hearing a plea challenging the extension of Mishra’s tenure.The NGO Common Cause had challenged the decision of the Centre to extend Mishra’s stint from two years to three years in November, 2020.Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that Mishra could not have been given an extension since he had already superannuated and such illegal extensions have an effect of destroying the supposed independence of the ED director’s office.It was also submitted that the ED must be free from all kinds of “influences”. The petition read: “That from the above, it is clear that the purpose behind Section 25 (d) of the CVC Act, in providing a minimum tenure of two years, is only to insulate the director of enforcement from all kinds of influences and pressures. However, the said purpose gets defeated if on the verge of his two-year tenure and much after his retirement age, the director of enforcement is given a de facto extension in service by adoption of a circuitous route of modifying the initial appointment order itself.”Also read: As ED Chief Gets One-Year Extension, Here’s a List of Cases He’s Probing Against Opposition LeadersIt also stated that the common people’s belief in the ED will wither away with this move. “That the Enforcement Directorate handles a large number of cases involving huge corruption, many of which are politically sensitive in nature and the director of enforcement has powers akin to that of the director of CBI. Such illegalities in appointment of the director of enforcement will shake the confidence of citizens in the institution of the Enforcement Directorate.”Sanjay Kumar Mishra. Photo: Twitter/IRS AssociationThe petition filed in the Supreme Court in November 2020 said that the office order issued by the Centre on November 13, extending Mishra’s tenure is in the teeth of Section 25 of the Central Vigilance Commission Act, 2003 (CVC Act). This Section provides that a person has to be above the rank of additional secretary to the Government of India to be eligible for appointment as a director of enforcement.“As (Respondent No.2) Sanjay Kumar Mishra has already reached his retirement age in May 2020, therefore, after the end of Respondent No.2’s two-year period on November 19, 2020, the Respondent No.2, by virtue of not holding any post above the rank of additional secretary, would have been ineligible for appointment as a director of enforcement again,” the petition stated.Mishra was appointed as the ED director for two years by an order dated November 19, 2018. However, the Centre on November 13, 2020 issued an office order in which it was stated that the President has modified the 2018 order to the effect that a period of ‘two years’ written in the 2018 order dated 19.11.2018 was modified to a period of ‘three years’.“The central government has employed a circuitous route in order to ensure that Sanjay Kumar Mishra gets one more year as director of enforcement by way of retrospectively modifying the appointment order dated November 19, 2018 itself. Thus, what could not have been done directly under the statute has been done indirectly,” the plea stated.Vipul Mudgal, the director of Common Cause, said the NGO welcomes the fact that the Supreme Court has issued a notice.“We feel that the executive cannot do indirectly what is not allowed directly. We hope that the autonomy expected from an institution like the ED will not be diluted by an illegal extension like this. While this is not the end of the case, we are also happy that the matter is at least being taken up with the urgency it deserves,” Mudgal said.