CHENNAI: The Madurai city police have registered a case against Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials on a complaint by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) that officers from the federal agency prevented them from discharging their duties in the case where ED officer Ankit Tiwari has been booked on charges of bribery.
DVAC arrested Tiwari on December 1 for allegedly accepting a bribe of ₹20 lakh. Later in the day, they carried out a raid at ED’s sub-zonal office in Madurai. “Initially, they did not allow us to enter his (Tiwari’s) room on the ground floor, so we had to take the help of local police with their cameraman and, eventually, they were allowed to search,” a DVAC official said, declining to be named.
The Tallakulam police station in Madurai has issued a summons to Brijesh Beniwal, assistant director of the ED’s Madurai office. “He has to appear tomorrow (Tuesday) as part of the enquiry process,” a police officer said, not wishing to be named. Police and DVAC officials did not share details on how many ED officers have been booked in the case.
ED on December 2 filed a complaint with Tamil Nadu police against the searches conducted in their office by the state’s anti-graft wing. State police are yet to act on ED’s complaint.
{{/usCountry}}ED on December 2 filed a complaint with Tamil Nadu police against the searches conducted in their office by the state’s anti-graft wing. State police are yet to act on ED’s complaint.
{{/usCountry}}ED has accused DVAC of criminal trespass, stealing and taking copies of sensitive documents that could jeopardise investigations and of letting unauthorised people inside ED’s office and conducting an illegal search.
Beniwal had filed the complaint with Shankar Jiwal, Tamil Nadu’s director general of police. The ED alleged that while only four DVAC officers along with two witnesses were authorised to search, 35 people including a few in civil dress without a badge claiming to be police along with “media and mob forcefully entered” their Madurai office.
They were reluctant to provide their identity cards except M Sathyaseelan, deputy superintendent of police at the DVAC’s Madurai branch. They “accessed the sensitive case records, information and internal documents of ED related to other cases which have no link with the alleged search case,” the federal agency said in its complaint. ED officials signed the panchnama (legal document that records findings in a crime scene by five people) after registering their protest.
The panchnama filed by Sathyaseelan and attached in the complaint said that Beniwal refused to cooperate with the investigation. Since ED prevented them from entering Tiwari’s room on the ground floor, Sathyaseelan said they took the help of local police and were later allowed to search.
DVAC seized three incriminating documents in a steel bureau numbered “3” in Tiwari’s room, the anti-graft agency said. It includes an Enforcement Case Information Report from 2020 against Dr Suresh Babu, chief civil surgeon of the government’s Dindigul hospital who was threatened to bribe the officer.
The doctor had tipped off DVAC on November 30 after Tiwari on November 29 asked for ₹3 crore to close the case, according to the FIR filed by DVAC on November 30. They finally negotiated to settle at ₹51 lakh. As agreed, the doctor paid the first instalment of ₹20 lakh on December 1, which has been recorded on camera. Later, DVAC caught Tiwari along the Madurai highway.