Days after ordinance, ED Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra gets 1-year extension

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 17

The Enforcement Directorate chief Sanjay Kumar Mishra’s term in office was on Wednesday extended for a year until November 18, 2022, or until further notice.

The extension came days after the government promulgated two ordinances to extend the tenures of ED and CBI chiefs from two years to up to five.

After the chiefs of the two probe agencies complete their initial tenures of two years, they can be granted annual extensions for three more years.

This is Mishra’s second extension.

His first extension order came in November last year, inviting a legal challenge in the Supreme Court from NGO Common Cause.

Mishra was to retire on Thursday.

Mishra’s extension was made possible under the Central Vigilance Commission Amendment Ordinance, 2021, promulgated on Sunday.

The ordinance is bound to lead to a massive Opposition-government faceoff in the winter session of Parliament, with the Opposition alleging misuse of agencies for political purposes.

Only last month, NCP chief Sharad Pawar had alleged that ED, CBI and Narcotics Control Bureau were being used to target the Opposition.

The Congress earlier questioned the ED arrest of Punjab MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira saying the ED was being used as an election department to revive the lost political fortunes of BJP in Punjab.

Congress veteran and former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is already facing ED probe in an alleged scam related to a Panchkula industrial plot allotment.