New Delhi: Upgrading sub-zonal offices to full-fledged ones headed by Joint Director-level officers, deployment of more investigating officers and possibly opening new offices at new hubs—these are among key policy decisions being mulled by the top brass of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) after the Centre approved the agency’s cadre-restructuring proposal Wednesday.
The restructuring—in which the strength of the ED’s executive cadre has been enhanced by over 50% across various levels—is expected to expand the agency’s footprint across the country, free up burdened investigating officers and create room to take on new cases.
The key policy decisions are, however, yet to take final shape and are being discussed at the agency’s headquarters, ED sources told ThePrint.
“A proposal of cadre restructuring was put before the government, only with a broader vision in mind. The fine print of the enhanced strength and its deployment is yet to be finalised,” an senior ED official.
Apart from the post of Director, currently held by Indian Revenue Service officer Rahul Navin, and seven posts at the level of Special Director, the Department of Revenue has nearly doubled the number of sanctioned posts at all ranks, from Assistant Enforcement Officer to Additional Director.
The number of Assistant Directors, who often serve as investigating officers, has been upgraded from the current 255 to 531. The number of Deputy Directors has been increased from 148 to 267, the number of Joint Directors from 28 to 49, and the number of Additional Directors from the current 10 to 24.
An Additional Director or Joint Director-level officer heads a zonal office or a unit at the agency’s headquarters in Delhi, while Deputy Directors are generally empowered to head a sub-zonal office, in accordance with the ED’s established procedure.
The agency has 30 zonal offices and 18 sub-zonal offices across the country. Additionally, two investigation units are based at the Delhi headquarters, each headed by an Additional Director-rank officer.
After the restructuring, the ED’s sanctioned strength would be 3,256, while the National Investigation Agency’s is 1,901 and the Central Bureau of Investigation’s is 7,300.
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‘Will improve quality & pace of probe’
On the government’s approval to restructure the cadre, former ED chief Karnal Singh said the move will enhance the agency’s probe quality and enable it to take up a larger number of cases.
“The restructuring will have a positive impact on the overall functioning of the agency, as it will allow more space to carry out investigations while not compromising on rigour and quality due to overburdening,” Singh told ThePrint.
During his keynote speech on the occasion of ED Day earlier this month, Director Navin had emphasised the agency’s track record over the last year, which he cited as the most productive in its history.
He said the agency filed 812 prosecution complaints, including 155 supplementary complaints, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act during financial year 2025-26, nearly twice the number filed in the previous financial year.
“To put this in perspective, of all the prosecution complaints ever filed by the directorate, over 41% have been filed in just the last two years. This acceleration in investigative and prosecutorial output is not incidental; it is the result of deliberate, sustained and intelligence-driven efforts,” Navin said.
He also emphasised the agency’s pending cases and underlined that their conclusion was priority.
“The restructuring will also enable zones and investigating units to deploy specific officers to pending cases, leading to the conclusion of the probe and filing of prosecution complaints,” a second ED official told ThePrint.
‘Long-drawn process’
Sources in the ED said the restructuring proposal was sent to the government after reviewing the number of pending and active cases and the number of investigating officers available to handle them.
“A zonal office in normal circumstances has around three to five Deputy Directors, and each Deputy Director has around two Assistant Directors to oversee their probes,” a third ED official said, explained the strength and mechanism of the agency.
However, things are starkly different for sub-zonal offices, where there is only one Deputy Director and, on average, two investigators at the rank of Assistant Director. “Some of the sub-zonal offices have jurisdiction to analyse and study potential cases from a dozen or even more districts, which is a huge ask,” another officer said.
At the current strength, an investigator is actively looking after at least 30 cases which are alive and require filing of prosecution complaints, estimate the senior officials.
“With such volume of pending cases, the new cases, including some involving new-age crimes, also come to the directorate on reference from sister agencies,” a fourth official lamented, adding that the restructuring will provide the agency with “much-needed teeth”.
However, the ED officials highlighted that the clearance for cadre restructuring is just the beginning of a long-drawn process, and a lot needs to happen for things to be streamlined according to the newly approved cadre strength.
“It needs to be studied whether amendments are needed in the recruitment rules to accommodate the restructuring. Maybe the deputation policy will have to be reframed to fill the newly-created vacancies because not all can be filled immediately on promotion,” the first official quoted above said.
“The restructuring order is the beginning of the process and not the end of the issue we wanted to deal with. It may take up to two years for things to be streamlined according to the planned enhancement of strength and footprint of the agency,” he added.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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