THE Supreme Court on Tuesday adjourned to March 18 the hearing on a plea moved by the ED alleging obstruction by the West Bengal Government, including by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, in its search operation at the I-PAC office and the premises of its director in connection with an alleged coal pilferage scam. A bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and KV Viswanathan deferred the matter after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court that a rejoinder will be filed during the day.

 

The top court on January 15 said the West Bengal CM’s alleged “obstruction” in ED’s probe is “very serious” and agreed to examine if a State’s law-enforcing agencies can interfere with any Central agency’s probe into any serious offence as it stayed FIRs against the agency’s officials who raided political consultancy I-PAC on January 8. The top court, while staying the FIRs filed in West Bengal against ED officials, also directed the State police to protect the CCTV footage of the raids. It had issued notices to Banerjee, the West Bengal Government, DGP Rajeev Kumar and top cops on the ED’s petitions seeking a CBI probe against them for allegedly obstructing raids at I-PAC premises.

 

The ED has also alleged that Banerjee entered the raid sites and took away “key” evidence, including physical documents and electronic devices, from the premises of I-PAC and obstructed and interfered with the investigation in the case. The ED has further claimed in its plea that the CM’s presence at the search site and the alleged removal of documents had an intimidating effect on officers and seriously compromised the federal probe agency’s ability to discharge its statutory functions independently. The ED’s plea in the apex court follows events from January 8, when the agency conducted searches on the premises of I-PAC and its director Pratik Jain in Kolkata as part of a money-laundering probe into the alleged multi-crore-rupee coal-pilferage scam. During the search operation, Banerjee reached the I-PAC office along with senior TMC leaders, confronted the ED officials and allegedly took away documents from the premises. 

 

 

IS THIS court going to monitor every murder or violent incident happening in West Bengal, the Supreme Court on Tuesday asked while hearing a plea concerning the alleged killing of three BJP workers after the 2018 local bodies elections in the State. A bench of justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and N V Anjaria asked the petitioner why he has not approached the Calcutta High Court with his grievance. Senior advocate Gaurav Bhatia, who had filed the plea in 2018 and was also appearing for the brother of one of the deceased, gave a brief background of the case and said three ghastly murders that took place in West Bengal were brought to the notice of the apex court. He argued that 19 murders, which were political in nature, took place in the State at that time and the brother and family members of one of the deceased were receiving death threats from some influential persons.