The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down ED Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra's tenure extension stating that it was in violation of the Supreme Court's 2021 judgment in Dr Jaya Thakur v. Union of India and others.
A three-judge bench of Justices BR Gavai, Vikram Nath and Sanjay Karol had directed the Centre accordingly.
Mishra has been on extension since November 2021. "Challenge to CVC Act and Delhi Special Police Establishment Act is dismissed... Extension granted to Sanjay Kumar Mishra after Supreme Court verdict is illegal. However, he is permitted to hold office till July 31, 2023," the Court ordered.
The Court said that while the legislature is empowered to enact law allowing extension of tenure of ED Director, it would not come to the rescue of Mishra since there was a specific Mandamus by the apex court in its 2021 judgment.
"We have held though legislature is competent to take away basis of judgment, it cannot annul the Mandamus. In Common Cause judgment, there was a specific mandamus and it was directed that there should be no further extension. Thus, extensions given after verdict was invalid in law," the Court said.
The judgment came in a batch of petitions challenging the extension of the tenure of the current ED Director Mishra, who was first appointed ED Director for a two-year term in November 2018 and was renewed in Nov 2020 by the Central government stating that the President had modified the 2018 order to the effect that a time of 'two years' was changed to a period of 'three years.'
This was challenged before the Supreme Court by the NGO Common Cause and the apex court in a September 2021 verdict approved the modification subject to no more extensions to Mishra.
Then the Central government issued an ordinance amending the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) Act, giving itself the power to extend the tenure of the ED Director by up to five years and parliament later passed a law to this effect.
When this was challenged before the apex court, the court gave its verdict today striking down the extension of tenure to Mishra, though it upheld the amendment to the CVC Act.
