Enforcement Directorate

The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) is a domestic law enforcement agency and economic intelligence agency responsible for enforcing economic laws and fighting economic crime in India. It is part of the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, Government Of India. The Enforcement Directorate focuses on investigating and prosecuting cases related to money laundering, foreign exchange violations, and economic offenses. Its primary objective is to curb the generation and circulation of black money and to ensure compliance with the laws concerning foreign exchange and prevention of money laundering. However, the enforcement directorate has been discredited as one of the major Indian agencies that misuses powers against activists, scholars, and political rivals with a 0.5% conviction rate since its inception. In July 2022, according to data shared by the union government in Parliament, only 23 people have been convicted in 5,422 cases registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in the 17 years after the law was passed, which is a conviction rate of less than 0.5%. Where as the national conviction rate in India for offences of the Indian Penal Code is 57.0% in 2021. The origin of the ED goes back to 1 May 1956, when an "enforcement unit" was formed, within the Department of Economic Affairs, for handling Exchange Control Laws violations under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947. In 1957, the unit was renamed as the Enforcement Directorate. Objective The prime objective of the Enforcement Directorate is the enforcement of two key Acts of the Government of India namely, the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA) and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA), and The Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018 (FEOA).