ED Appoints Three New Assistant Directors from Income Tax Cadre

Three Income Tax Officers have been appointed Assistant Directors in the Enforcement Directorate. Sravan Kumar Reddy V, Gopal Kumar Jha and Nitin Verma all move over from the Central Board of Direct Taxes. A notification confirmed the postings this week.

Assistant Directors are the ED's front-line investigators. They execute search operations, record statements under the PMLA, and build the case files that go up to Deputy Directors for further action. The post is usually filled through deputation from income tax and customs, since the work leans heavily on financial-forensics skills — tracing money through bank accounts, shell entities and cross-border remittance channels.

All three officers held ITO-rank postings in assessment and investigation before this move, handling scrutiny assessments, search-and-seizure operations under the Income Tax Act, and coordination with the department's own investigation wing.

They leave their income tax postings for enforcement charges — a lateral shift common enough at the ITO level that it is often seen as a stepping stone to further central deputations.

The Enforcement Directorate has been adding to its ground-level investigative staff steadily. Money-laundering cases tied to financial fraud, cryptocurrency-linked offences and shell-company transactions have grown in number, most of them flagged initially by income tax or customs officials during routine assessment and audit work.

The three will work under Deputy Directors on field verification, evidence collection and enforcement case information reports — the documents that anchor further investigation and, eventually, prosecution before the agency's special courts. They will also assist in coordinating with state police and other central agencies on cases involving overlapping predicate offences.

The three officers are expected to report to their assigned zonal offices in the coming days, according to the notification.