Supreme Court judge Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul recuses from plea challenging tenure extension of ED Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra

Supreme Court judge Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul on Friday recused from hearing a batch of pleas challenging the extension of tenure of the current Director of Enforcement Directorate (ED), Sanjay Kumar Mishra [Dr Jaya Thakur and ors vs Union of India and ors]..The matter came up before a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and AS Oka when Justice Kaul chose to recuse from the case. "Let the matter be placed before Chief Justice of India for appropriate orders. I cannot take up the matter," he said..The top court is seized of a batch of pleas challengin, the validity of the extension given to Mishra.The petitioners have contended that the Central government's decision to extend Mishra's tenure was in violation of top court's September 2021 verdict, which ruled against more extensions to Mishra.In that verdict, the Supreme Court had affirmed an earlier judgement of the Central government dated November 13, 2020, which made retrospective revisions to Mishra's appointment order, increasing his term from two to three years.Mishra was first appointed as the ED Director for a two-year term in November 2018. The two-year term expired in November 2020. In May 2020, he had reached the retirement age of 60.However, on November 13, 2020, the Central Government issued an office order stating that the President had modified the 2018 order to the effect that a time of 'two years' was changed to a period of 'three years.' This was challenged at the Supreme Court by the NGO Common Cause.After the Supreme Court's decision last year, the Central government brought in an ordinance amending the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) Act, empowering itself to extend the tenure of the ED Director up to five years. This has now been challenged before the top court.The Supreme Court had, on September 5, appointed Senior Advocate KV Viswanathan Amicus Curiae in the case..The Central government in its affidavit has maintained that the present batch of pleas are politically motivated since the petitioners belong to political parties whose leaders are currently under the ED scanner. The petitioners Jaya Thakur, Saket Gokhale, Randeep Singh Surjewala and Mahua Moitra belong to either the Congress party or the Trinamool Congress whose top leaders are being probed by the ED, it was stated.The Union government defended the extension, stating that it was done since the specialised work required to be administered by a premier agency is a continuous process, and the person leading the organisation should have a tenure of two to five years..Just yesterday, Mishra was given another one-year extension. .[Read order]