The Supreme Court’s stinging remarks came while it was hearing the ED’s petition alleging interference by Mamata Banerjee and her government during its January 8 raids on the office of political consultancy firm I-PAC.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday came down heavily on the Bengal government in the I-PAC case, saying Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee interrupting ED raids in the state was not a “happy situation”. A bench of justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and NV Anjaria said central probe agencies could not be left without any remedy in such instances.
“The case here is that some Chief Minister allegedly barges into a government office and interferes with the Central government agency’s work. What is the remedy then? What happens if some other CM does it again? We have to respond to an organic situation where some remedy has to be there,” the court said, indicating that it might frame SOPs for such situations.
Representing the Bengal government, senior advocate Shyam Divan, however, argued that the Constitution does provide a remedy. He suggested that the Centre could initiate appropriate proceedings rather than departments acting independently and invoking writ jurisdiction.
WHAT IS THE I-PAC CASE?
The Supreme Court was hearing the ED’s petition alleging interference by Mamata and the government during its January 8 raids on the office of political consultancy firm I-PAC in Kolkata, as well as the residence of its chief, Prateek Jain. The raids were in connection with a money laundering probe linked to the alleged coal scam.
High drama unfolded on January 8 after Banerjee rushed to Jain’s residence and walked out carrying a laptop, a phone and several files even as the raids were on. She then headed straight to I-PAC’s Salt Lake office, where a second ED team was carrying out searches, and came out with several files.
The ED called it a “gross abuse of power”. However, Mamata claimed that the raids were politically motivated and engineered by the BJP ahead of the high-stakes Bengal elections. Bengal goes to the polls on April 23 and 29.
‘YOU CAN’T DICTATE TO US’
Now, coming back to the hearing in the Supreme Court. At the outset, the court turned down a plea by Bengal seeking adjournment of the hearing on the ED’s plea. Advocate Divan, representing Bengal, sought additional time to file a response to the counter-affidavit filed by the ED.
However, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the ED, swiftly opposed the request. He called it a tactic to delay the hearing and pointed out that the ED rejoinder was filed four weeks ago.
