ED Introduces a Mechanism for Verification of the Authenticity of Summons issued by it.

ED introduces a mechanism for verification of the authenticity of summons issued by it.

 Inder Vashisth

During the course of investigation, summons are issued by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) under the provisions of section 50(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) and section 37 of Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA). However, multiple instances have come to the notice of the Directorate of Enforcement where certain "unscrupulous" persons (conman) have sent summons to individuals with the motive of cheating or extortion.Investigations were conducted in these cases of fraud by ED and recently 4 persons have been arrested by Delhi Police (on the basis of complaint filed by ED) who were involved in issuing fake notice for appearance, impersonating as ED officers. These fake summons are often similar to the genuine summons issued by ED and hence it is difficult for the individuals to distinguish between the fake and genuine summons.

 In order to allow the individuals to verify the authenticity of the summons received by them, the Directorate of Enforcement has implemented a mechanism of generating summons through the system. Accordingly, officials of ED have been instructed to issue summons only through the system except in certain exceptional circumstances. It may also be noted that the summons generated from the system shall be duly signed and stamped by the official issuing the summons and shall also contain his/her official email id and the phone number for correspondence purpose.

The system generated summons shall bear a QR code and a unique Passcode at the bottom of the summons. The receiver of the summons can verify the authenticity of the summons by scanning the QR code printed on the summons and entering the unique Passcode on the website page of ED (which will open after scanning the QR code) after 24 hours of receipt of the same (excluding public holidays, saturdays and sundays).

 The summons which could not been generated through system can be 

verified by contacting the designated point of contact over telephone or email. The detailed procedure required to be followed for verification of summons including the 

details of designated point of contact are available on the official website of ED (https://enforcementdirectorate.gov.in )