ED Gets 5 Special Directors For Strategic Reinforcement

In an order, the government said, "The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the other member of the panel being Home Minister Amit Shah, cleared the names of the officers at its meeting on Monday."

The officers include 1997-batch IPS officer of the AGMUT cadre Viplav Kumar Choudhry, and IRS officers Manu Tentiwal and T Sankar (2003-batch), N Padmanaban (2005-batch), Rajnish Dev Barman (1999-batch). 

With these appointments, the ED will now operate with a full strength of eight Special Directors, reinforcing its supervisory and operational capabilities across its regional offices and special units. 

These officers will play a critical role in overseeing field investigations related to economic offenses and enforcing key financial laws like Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act (FEOA) and the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (COFEPOSA). 

Three other Special Directors who are already serving the ED include 1993-batch IRS Subhash Agrawal, who is posted at the Head Office. IRS officer of 2001-batch Prashant Kumar is another Special Director heading the Central Region of the agency. The third serving Special Director is 2004-batch IRS officer Satyabrata Kumar, who is heading the Eastern Region of the agency.

Of the eight Special Directors, seven are from the revenue service and one from the police service. This shows that the control of IRS officers over the ED is now almost complete. All these officers will report to ED Director Rahul Navin, an IRS officer of the 1993-batch, and will oversee investigations, boosting the effectiveness of the agency that operates under the Union Ministry of Finance.