Madras HC bench recuses from hearing TASMAC plea against ED

The development comes days after the Tamil Nadu government and TASMAC moved court challenging ED’s raids at the latter’s headquarters in Chennai between March 6 and 8

A division bench of the Madras high court on Tuesday recused from hearing petitions filed by the Tamil Nadu government and the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) against raids conducted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at TASMAC’s headquarters earlier this month.

On March 20 when the petitions were heard, the high court bench had orally directed ED to not take any coercive action against TASMAC until the next hearing. (ANI)

“We are recusing ourselves,” the bench of justices MS Ramesh and N Senthilkumar was quoted as saying by LiveLaw. “We’re not taking it up. We have some reasons. We wanted it to be posted tomorrow, but we had already signed the order for posting. But, we found that we cannot take this matter.”

The bench directed the court registry to list the case before an alternate bench. The case is likely to be listed before the division bench of justices SM Subramaniam and K Rajasekar on Wednesday.

The development comes days after the Tamil Nadu government and TASMAC moved court challenging ED’s raids at the latter’s headquarters in Chennai between March 6 and 8. Following the raids, the ED, on March 13, had alleged irregularities to the tune of ₹1,000 at the state-run liquor retailer.

Both the state and TASMAC sought the court’s directions to declare the searches illegal. The petitioners claimed the raids, held without the state’s consent, was violative of federalism. TASMAC also sought a direction against ED to not harass its staff under the guise of a probe.

On March 20 when the petitions were heard, the high court bench had orally directed ED to not take any coercive action against TASMAC until the next hearing.