Government of India allows the Enforcement Directorate to share information with 15 more government agencies

Tags: National Economy/Finance

The Ministry of Finance on 22 November 2022 issued a notification which amended the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, and allowed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to share information about economic offenders with 15 more agencies. Earlier the ED shared information with only 10 government agencies. Now it has to share information with 25 agencies.

This has been done by the government to expedite the cases involving cases related to economic offence and better coordination between agencies.

The ED investigates the case relating to economics offence under the Prevention of Money of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2022, the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act 2018 and the sections of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) 1999.

New agencies with which ED has to share information

These 15 agencies with which now ED has to share information are  National Investigation Agency (NIA), Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), State Police Department, regulators under various Acts, Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Ministry of External Affairs, and Competition Commission of India (CCI), National Intelligence Grid, Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), Defence Intelligence Agency, National Technical Research Organisation, Military Intelligence, inquiry authority under Central Civil Services Rules and Wildlife Crime Control Bureau..

Other 10 agencies with which ED shares information are;

The ED earlier used to share its information with Director (Financial Intelligence Unit, India, under the Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue), Cabinet Secretariat (Research and Analysis Wing), Ministry of Home Affairs or National Security Council Secretariat or Intelligence Bureau, Economic Offenses Wing of Central Bureau of Investigation, Chief Secretaries of State Governments, Reserve Bank of India, Department of Company Affairs, Securities and Exchange Board of India.

The Enforcement Directorate was set up in 1956 under the Union Finance Ministry. 

Director of Enforcement Directorate Sanjay Kumar Mishra