TASMAC money laundering case: Madras High Court stays further ED proceedings against film producer Akash Baskaran, businessman friend Vikram Ravindran
A Division Bench of Justices M.S. Ramesh and V. Laksminarayanan granted the interim stay after being prima facie satisfied that an authorisation issued by a Joint Director of ED on May 15 and the consequential search and seizure operations at their residences and office was 'wholly without authority or jurisdiction.'
The judges went through the ED records produced before the court in a sealed cover and found no incriminating information or material, connecting the two writ petitioners with the TASMAC money laundering case, was available with them when the authorisation for search and seizure was issued by the Joint Director on May 15, 2025.
'It would be suffice to state that the so called information produced by the Directorate before us had absolutely no semblance of information which may have led them to believe that the petitioners may be involved in the offence of money laundering. In the light of the above observations, there shall be an order of interim stay,' the Bench added.
The judges also directed ED to return to the petitioners all materials including a laptop, a hard drive, three external hard disks, three iPhones, one more mobile phone and the lease rental deeds with respect to their office at Semmenchery and Mr. Ravindran's residence at Poes Garden which were seized from Mr. Baskaran's residence on May 16.
The Bench made it clear the petitioners must not tamper with or alienate any of those seized materials until further orders from the court and directed the High Court Registry too to keep a copy of the records produced by the ED, in a sealed cover, in safe custody so that they could be used during final hearing of the writ petitions.
Though Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju urged the Division Bench to keep their interim stay order in abeyance for a period of three weeks to enable the ED to file an appeal before the Supreme Court if they chose to do so, the judges refused to accept the request and said, their order copy would be issued on Friday itself.
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