The recent Supreme Court judgement upholding the powers of the ED in the PMLA amendment 2019 has given unfettered powers of search, seizure and arrest sans warrant to a government agency which supposedly comes under the Finance ministry. The SC dismissed @ 250 petitions lodged by opposition parties challenging the overarching authority granted to the ED, which is a tool of vendetta used by the government as has become obvious over the past three years. Anyone who speaks / writes / petitions and I daresay even thinks against the sarkar or its policies by default blips on the ED radar to be hounded, harassed, browbeaten and in most cases jailed; it is interesting to note that no BJP neta has been raided by the ED in recent memory and the only ones the Directorate has special affection for is the opposition and dissenters. Consider another chilling statistic, ED raids have jumped 27 times to 3010 (pertaining to a total of 5422 cases) in the past 8 years, out of which only 888 chargesheets were filed resulting in a mere 23 convictions, ie. only 0.42% of the accused were pronounced cognizably guilty. Just after the verdict was announced, ED sealed the offices of Young India Limited, the company that runs the Congress's mouthpiece National Herald. The ED action happened after extended, almost brutal questioning of the Gandhis.
The flawed SC judgement has paved the way for more arbitrary , unwarranted and dangerous harassment of political parties and individuals not subscribing to the government's ideology and policies. Partisan, coercive actions by Central agencies like the ED, CBI, IT and NIA are an Orwellian nightmare, hope the government doesn't raise a ' thought police' unit next.
