ED searches at Kingston Engineering College. File
| Photo Credit: C. Venkatachalapathy
The Madras High Court on Thursday (January 9, 2025) dismissed a writ petition filed by Kingston Engineering College, run by Duraimurugan Educational Trust, at Katpadi in Vellore district against the sealing of its server room by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on January 4, 2025, in connection with a money laundering case registered against its managing trustee and MP D.M. Kathir Anand.
A Division Bench of Justices S.M. Subramaniam and M. Jothiraman rejected the plea after ED Special Public Prosecutor N. Ramesh said the room was already ‘de-sealed’ on January 7 and the investigating agency had seized only two out of the nine servers. The SPP also claimed the room had to be sealed due to non-cooperation by the college management in letting the ED access the data.
Mr. Ramesh said the ED officials were made to wait for over six hours on January 4 despite making requests to Mr. Anand, as well as other administrative staff in the college, to open the locked server room. He said a carpenter had to be brought in to break open the lock of the server room and the room of the chairman. He added that ₹2.74 crore in cash was seized from the college premises during the search operation.
Though the college management stoutly denied the charge of non-cooperation and sought a direction to the ED to provide a copy of the data retrieved from the two seized servers, the judges refused to issue any such direction by observing that it would be outside the scope of the present writ petition. The Bench made it clear that the college could work out its remedy in a manner known to law.
In an affidavit filed on behalf of the college, its principal U.V. Arivazhagu, said the ED sleuths had begun a search and seizure operation on the college premises from January 3, 2025, in connection with a Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) registered against Mr. Anand under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) of 2002.
He said the operation continued till January 5, 2025 and the college staff had fully cooperated with the ED officials. However, after completing the search operation, the sleuths shut down the computer servers and sealed the server room, the principal said, and complained that the institution was unable to use the computer laboratories and CCTV cameras due to this action.
“The safety and security of students, particularly women, are in jeopardy,” the principal said and insisted on directing the ED to de-seal the server room.
Published – January 09, 2025 12:49 pm IST
