The Enforcement Directorate has developed a system for authenticating its summonses to witnesses and suspects for recording their statements, in view of several instances of forged ED summonses.
The Delhi Police had recently arrested four persons who were allegedly involved in generating forged notices posing as Enforcement Directorate officials to cheat people. The agency had lodged a complaint with the police and the accused were arrested.
“In order to allow individuals to verify the authenticity of the summons received by them, the Enforcement Directorate has implemented a mechanism of generating summons through a system. Accordingly, ED officials have been instructed to issue summons only through the system, except in certain exceptional circumstances,” said the agency.
The summons generated through the system would be duly signed and stamped by the authorised official and would bear the official’s email address and phone number for the purpose of correspondence. The system-generated summons would also bear a QR code and a unique passcode mentioned at the bottom of the summons.
“The receiver of the summons can verify its authenticity by scanning the QR code printed on the summons and by entering the unique passcode on the website page of the ED, which will open after scanning the QR code, after 24 hours of the receipt of the same (excluding public holidays, Saturdays and Sundays),” said the agency.
The summons not generated through the system could be verified by contacting the designated point of contact over telephone or email, said the agency.
