DVAC assures court of proper probe into ED’s plaint against T.N. Minister Nehru’s department

The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) on Wednesday assured the Madras High Court of a “proper and full-fledged investigation” into the cash-for-business complaint filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against Minister KN Nehru’s Municipal Administration and Water Supply Department.

Appearing before First Division Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan, senior advocate NR Elango, representing DVAC, said the latter would also write to the ED and ask the agency to share other materials in its possession.

The applications were filed before the Bench reserved its orders on two writ petitions, one filed by K. Athinarayanan from Madurai and the other by AIADMK Rajya Sabha member IS Inbadurai, seeking directions to DVAC to register a First Information Report (FIR) on the alleged scam.

Mr Elango said the information shared by the ED with the Tamil Nadu police was treated as preliminary information and the DVAC had initiated a ‘detailed investigation’ into the matter under the provisions of the Vigilance Guidelines, one of the country’s oldest guidelines approved by the Supreme Court.

Therefore, the information shared by the writ petitioners cannot be considered as preliminary information and an FIR cannot be lodged without waiting for the outcome of “detailed investigation”, the senior lawyer said, adding that DVAC will investigate without any bias.

At the beginning of the hearing, the Chief Justice expressed displeasure that the first writ petitioner from Madurai had not disclosed his background in his affidavit even though he was facing several criminal cases, including one charge of attempt to murder, over the last few years.

The Bench then proceeded to hear the arguments of senior advocate V. Raghavachari on behalf of the AIADMK MP; He relied on three Supreme Court judgments to support his contention that DVAC was duty bound to register an FIR based on information shared by the ED and that a detailed investigation would not be sufficient.

Special Public Prosecutor for ED N. Ramesh said the agency had not only shared information but also shared 232 pages of evidence which clearly showed that a cognizable offense had been committed and hence the DVAC could not resist registering an FIR based on the materials.

However, Solicitor General PS Raman said that the ED collected these materials during a search and seizure operation carried out in April 2025 in connection with a bank fraud case. He said that the High Court Division quashed the Enforcement Case Information Report recorded in this case on July 24, 2025.

“After this, the ED was supposed to return all these materials to the concerned persons. However, it kept a copy of all these materials, waited for about three months and then shared it with the Tamil Nadu Director General of Police on October 27, 2025,” he said.

Stating that the Tamil Nadu government has acted with enthusiasm by forwarding the ED’s communication to the DVAC, which has now initiated a ‘detailed investigation’, the AG said the outcome of the investigation will be placed before the government within the stipulated 180 days for further steps.