Enforcement Directorate Gets Seven New Deputy Directors

Seven officers have joined the Enforcement Directorate as Deputy Directors. Six come from the Indian Revenue Service, split across the Customs and Indirect Taxes and Income Tax wings. One is from the Indian Railway Accounts Service. A notification confirming the deputations was made public this week.

Deputy Directors run the day-to-day investigation work at the Enforcement Directorate's zonal and regional offices. They handle cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and the Foreign Exchange Management Act, most of which originate from predicate offences registered by state police, the CBI, or the income tax department's own investigation wing. The rank carries authority to issue summons and record statements during an active probe.

Ashish Kumar and Venkatesh M, both IRS Customs and Indirect Taxes officers, move from the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. Rohit Kumar, Chandrakanth Reddy Mallu, Akshay Kabra and Siddharth Gupta come from the Central Board of Direct Taxes as IRS Income Tax officers. T. Chitra joins from the Indian Railway Accounts Service.

All seven leave their parent departments — CBIC, CBDT and the Railways — for a fixed deputation tenure at the ED, typically running three to five years before they return to their home cadres.

Deputation from CBIC, CBDT and IRAS remains the ED's main recruitment channel at this rank, since the agency has no large independent cadre of its own here. Revenue service officers bring tax-audit and financial-forensics skills that overlap closely with what money-laundering investigations require.

The agency's caseload has grown steadily — bank fraud, shell-company networks and cross-border financial offences now account for a large share of pending files. The seven new Deputy Directors will handle search-and-seizure operations, provisional attachment orders, and prosecution complaints before the PMLA's special courts, while continuing to draw their appraisals through the ED's own reporting line even though they remain on their parent cadre's rolls.

All seven officers are expected to join their assigned zonal offices within the week, the notification said.