NEW DELHI: For the fourth time in five years, the Supreme Court on Wednesday stepped in to shield ED joint director Rajeshwar Singh from departmental action based on anonymous and pseudonymous complaints, which allegedly escalated when the officer started probing high-profile cases like Sahara, Aircel-Maxis and Karti Chidambaram SC drafted Singh into a special team of investigators from CBI and ED in 2010 to probe alleged irregular allotment of 2G spectrum during the UPA-I government and the apex court had ordered that these officers would not be disturbed or transferred without its prior permission.Appearing for Singh, advocate Gopal Shankaranarayanan told a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and S Abdul Nazir that the ED official had approached the SC thrice earlier and got protection when the revenue department and finance ministry intended to take action on the basis of allegedly scurrilous anonymous allegations —first, when he investigated the big companies involved in the 2G scam; second, when he probed Sahara group; and third, when he was being pushed out of ED despite being eligible for absorption in ED cadre and so recommended by UPSC. The SC had directed Singh’s absorption in ED on September 8, 2014.Shankaranarayanan alleged Singh has been systematically harassed and alleged that though he was absorbed in ED, his promotion to joint director was delayed by two years, thus denying him seniority.In his application stated: “Recently, he made an attachment of Rs 1.16 crore worth property of Karti Chidambaram, son of former home and finance minister P Chidamabaram, and filed complaint before the adjudicating authority on September 23. A show cause notice under Fema was also issued to Karti and Vasan Health Care Pvt Ltd on April 17 for amount for Rs 22.5 crore each.”“Pursuant to the filing of these complaints, a series of false, frivolous and concocted complaints have started coming in against Singh to harass him and his family mentally, which has been going on for last seven years. These are identical to those made in 2011 and 2012 against him and for which the SC had protected him from any departmental action,” Shankaranarayanan said.BJP leader Subramanian Swamy , who had rendered key assistance to the SC during its monitoring of the 2G scam cases by CBI and ED, stood up in support of Singh before the bench of Justices Chelameswar and Nazir. He said: “Singh is an honest officer who has performed his job without fear and favour. It appears that some political leaders at high places are trying to target this honest officer.”Interestingly, former finance minister Chidambaram has accused ED and CBI of harassing him at government’s instance.Singh has requested the SC to “direct the CBI Director to investigate the conspiracy against him in the form of generating false complaints and submit a report to the court”. Out of frustration at systematic harassment, Singh also said that if the court deemed fit, it can relieve him from investigating the 2G scam cases as well as the probe into Aircel-Maxis case.The bench asked additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for ED, as well as department of telecom to file response in four weeks. It ordered: “Having regard to the nature of the allegations in the application and earlier orders of this court, pending further orders, we deem it appropriate that no action be initiated against the applicant herein by anyone of the authorities.”