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An urgent listing was sought before the court today, which was agreed to by the bench which listed the Centre's plea at 3:30PM tomorrow.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear tomorrow Central Government's application seeking an extension of tenure for the present Enforcement Directorate Director SK Mishra.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta mentioned the plea before Justice BR Gavai today and said, "We are making a prayer to persuade the court", while asking for a date this week.
Justice Gavai acceded to the request and observed that he would be hearing the matter tomorrow at 3:30PM.
On July 11, the top court had ordered that Mishra's tenure would end on July 31st. When a submission was made against such order, the bench had told SG Mehta that ample time was granted to find a replacement.
While doing so, the court had upheld the amendments made to the Central Vigilance Commission Act and the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act for extending the tenure of the CBI and ED Chiefs for a maximum period of 5 years including a 2-year fixed term that may be extended “in public interest” by a 3-year term are not manifestly arbitrary.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai, Vikram Nath and Sanjay Karol had opined that as the legislature was not competent to take away a mandamus issued by Court, the Centre had no right to not abide by its directions issued in September 2021, in Common Cause (A Registered Society) v. Union of India and others wherein it had expressly barred any further extension of the then ED Director Mishra's tenure.
In May this year, on the last day of arguments, the Centre had defended the third extension of service granted to Enforcement Directorate chief Sanjay Kumar Mishra saying that it was done after a peer review was conducted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) this year.
On August 2nd, last year, the Supreme Court had issued notice on a batch of petitions challenging the Central Government's order extending the tenure of Enforcement Directorate Director, Sanjay Kumar Mishra.
A bench of then Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, Justice Krishna Murari, and Justice Hima Kohli had issued notice to the Central Government and listed the matter for hearing after 10 days.
It may be noted that a total of 8 petitions were filed by several petitioners including Congress leader Dr Jaya Thakur, Saket Gokhale, Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala, Krishan Chander Singh, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, Vineet Narain, and Advocate Manohar Lal Sharma in this regard.
In November 2021, the Centre had brought in ordinances to extend the tenures of the Chiefs of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for up to 5 years.
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