ED Full Form

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If asked, do you know ED’s long-form? Or What exactly do you know about ED? What is its function? You will find all the answers related to ED in full form in the following.

So, ED’s long-form is Enforcement Directorate. This is a term more widely used in our country, Enforcement Directorate (ED full form in India) is a law enforcement agency. This agency was established in 1956. ED has a great contribution to our country, the agency is responsible for the enforcement of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA). ED also takes care of certain provisions under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. The agency is headquartered in New Delhi, India.

This is indeed a preliminary introduction of the acronym ED, which basically was grounded to this question ‘What is the full form of ED?’. We will discuss more on this subject in our upcoming section. 

What is the Full Form of ED?

The full form of ED is the Enforcement Directorate. The ED office full form and ED banking full form is also the same expansion ‘Enforcement Directorate’.  

This is a legal term that is not quite popularly known to Indian citizens. Hence, to make them notify us we have included the full form of ED in our content. Students preparing for legal studies must be aware of this full form. While, generally people should know what is meant by ED, its function, and other such aspects. All these we are going to deal with in detail in our section. 

Who is Behind the Economic Law of Our Country?

The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) is a law enforcement agency and also an economic intelligence agency. This agency is responsible for enforcing economic laws and who are specialized in fighting economic crime in India. ED is a part of the Department of Revenue, a Ministry of Finance, Government of India. 

ED is composed of officers, officers ranking from the Indian Revenue Service, Indian Corporate Law Service, Indian Administrative Service (IAS), and Indian Police Service (IPS).   

ED deals with the economic laws and the department fights any economic crimes which are going on in the country, India. ED agency approaches and resolves the issues by adjudication that have provision for appeal in both its acts and has its own courts for the trials and the agency has its own appellate tribunals as well.

Officers in-Charge

The officers are of their own cadre and are well promoted in their rank. The total strength of ED is less than 2000. While approximately 70% of the officials came from other deputations. Also, ED has its own officers. The Assistant Enforcement Officer is being recruited for the ED cadre, they are the officers who are actually the departmental staff that serves the ED. AEOs are promoted to various strata of the hierarchy and the structure as the backbone of this small department. 

The formation of this Directorate goes back to 1 May 1956, when an ‘Enforcement Unit’ was formed, in the Department of Economic Affairs, which handled the Exchange Control Laws violation coming under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947. In 1957, this Unit was renamed as ‘Enforcement Directorate’. Sanjay Kumar Mishra served as the former Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, New Delhi. Mishra was thereafter appointed as the ED chief in the rank of Secretary to Government of India. 

Organizational Layout

The Enforcement Directorate comes under the administrative control of the Department of Revenue, the department works under the Department of Revenue. Department of Revenue who in turn works under the Ministry of Finance. The department has 10 Zonal Offices, which are being headed by the Deputy Directors, and has 11 altogether sub-Zonal Offices, which are being headed by the Assistant Directors.

Shri Sudhir Nath, an officer of the rank of Additional Special is the Director. There are two Special Directors at Headquarters and one Special Director sits in Mumbai. The Directorate has 10 Zonal offices each of which are being headed by a Deputy Director and 11 sub–Zonal Offices, are again headed by Assistant Directors. Zonal offices are located in - Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Chennai, Cochin, Ahmedabad, Bangalore & Hyderabad. Sub Zonal offices are located in - Jaipur, Jalandhar, Varanasi, Guwahati, Srinagar, Calicut, Indore, Nagpur, Patna, Bhubaneswar & Madurai.

Functions:

1. The department investigates if there are any suspected violations of the provisions of the FEMA, like hawala transactions, export proceeds, non-realization of export proceeds, foreign exchange violations, and such other violations under FEMA.

2. The department collects, develops, and disseminates the intelligence information which is related to the violations of FEMA, 1999.

3. They can attach the assets of defaulters of FEMA. This will mean the prohibition of transfer, conversion, disposition, or the movement of property by an order, which is issued under Chapter III of the Money Laundering Act (Section 2(1) (d)).

4. ED takes action such as search, arrest, prosecution action, and survey against the offenders of PMLA offense.

5. ED settles cases of violations of the erstwhile FERA, of the year 1973 and FEMA, of the year 1999 and decides its penalties.

6. To arrest a person who is involved in the act of money laundering and later to prosecute him, if found guilty. 

The Main Ambition of The Department:

The dominant objective of the department, Enforcement Directorate is enforcing two key Acts of the Government of India namely:

• The Foreign Exchange Management Act 1999 (FEMA)

• Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002 (PMLA)   

The ED's (expanded as Enforcement Directorate) official website includes other objectives which are mainly linked to checking money laundering in India. In fact, ED is an investigation agency, which provides the complete details on the public domain that are against the rules of GOI.

Extra Courts if Required 

For any trial required of an offense which is punishable under section 4 of PMLA, the CG or the Central Government (in consultation with the Chief Justice of the High Court), assigns one or more than one session court or courts. This court is also called "PMLA Court". If there is an appeal against any of the orders passed by the PMLA court, then it can be filed directly in the High Court under that jurisdiction.