NEW DELHI, June 21: The government today denied that Intelligence Bureau had raided offices of Enforcement Directorate, but did not deny reports which said that ED officials were questioned and were under surveillance. In fact, the denial confirmed that IB officials had been visiting ED regularly for the past few days.

Terming the reports of the raid as misleading, an official spokesman said ``with prior consultation and with prior appointment, officials of the IB visited the office of the Enforcement Directorate in the normal course of their assigned functions and duties''.

Commenting on the reports, an ED spokesman separately said, ``This cannot be described as a raid. Teams from the IB have been visiting the Directorate for the last few days for official purposes.''

He said among other things, discussions have also been held regarding ``improving the security and access control for sensitive documents in the office'' of the Directorate.

When contacted, Union Home Secretary K Padmanabhaiah said his Ministry had not given any authorisation for conducting any ``raid''. He said he had ``no knowledge whatsoever'' about the reported incident till he saw the news items yesterday. ED sources maintained that officials were indeed questioned by IB officials about leakages to media. ``This appears to be an attempt to over-awe the officers of ED,'' sources said.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.