Enforcement Directorate Arrests Former Jharkhand Chief Minister

Context:

• Hemant Soren, the former Chief Minister of Jharkhand, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on January 31 in connection with a land scam case.
• This arrest followed his resignation and a lengthy questioning session by ED officials at his official residence in Ranchi.

Details about the news:

• Hemant Soren, the former Chief Minister of Jharkhand, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a land scam case after he resigned from his position.
• This came after the ED officials questioned him for over seven hours at his official residence.
• The resignation has been accepted by the Jharkhand Governor and Champai Soren, a senior JMM leader, has been elected as the new leader of the Legislature Party.
• Champai Soren has been an MLA for five terms and was actively involved in the movement for the creation of Jharkhand.

About Enforcement Directorate:

• The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is a government agency in India that has the dual role of enforcing economic laws and combating economic crimes.
• It operates under the Department of Revenue, which falls under the Ministry of Finance in the Government of India.
• The agency consists of officials from various prestigious services such as the Indian Revenue Service, Indian Corporate Law Service, Indian Police Service, and Indian Administrative Service.
• The establishment of Enforcement Directorate can be traced back to 1 May, 1956 where it was initially formed as an “Enforce Unit” department within the Departmentof Economic Affairs.
• This unit had to take measures towards the infringements of Exchange Control laws, under Foreign Exchange Regulation Act 1947.
• Secondly in 1957, it was formally known as “Enforcement Directorate” so that to improve its mandates.

Objective of ED:

• The main function of the ED is to implement FEMA 199 and PMLA Act, 20- in India.
• The goals of the ED under the official website are to combat money laundering.
• Being a probe agency, the ED does not offer full details in public domain.
• It conducts investigations on alleged violations of FEMA such as denunciation of export proceed, hawala transactions and possession huge quantity in foreign currency.
• The ED gathers and distributes FEMA violations-related intelligence information, accepts inputs from the country’s intelligence agencies and complaints, as well as has a capability to seize assets of those committing FEMA offenses.
• It also acts against violators of PMLA offences, it grants and applies for mutual legal assistance the international requests to assist in settlement proceedings determining penalties.

Source: Indian Express

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