TEHRAN — Iran's long-running currency crisis entered its most volatile phase on Tuesday, as the rial hit a new all-time low, with the US dollar trading above 1.34 million rials across Tehran's open foreign exchange market. 

What began in recent months as another sharp depreciation trend has now escalated into a high-stakes confrontation between political institutions, exposing deep fractures within the ruling establishment.

At the center of the latest escalation is hard-line Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, who publicly accused the Central Bank of Iran of failures in regulating the market and allowing inflation to erode living standards. 

Speaking at a Tehran meeting of top judges on Monday, Ejei questioned the bank's oversight of foreign trade licenses and accused it of negligence bordering on complicity. According to the judiciary’s Mizan news agency, Ejei raised alarm over what he described as systemic failures in banking oversight, citing the CBI’s own figures showing that more than 250 suspects accused of economic sabotage had used over 6,000 bank accounts for money laundering. He questioned how such activity had gone undetected by financial regulators and dismissed claims that the suspects had already been referred to the judiciary, saying no such cases had formally reached his office.