Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress faction led by the former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday approached a single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court, challenging the actions initiated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against three bank accounts held by the party with a private sector bank with a combined deposit amount of Rs 440 crore.
The case in relation to these three bank accounts are complicated following the parallel investigations by the West Bengal Police and ED in the matter.
First the debit restrictions on these three bank accounts were imposed last month by the bank authorities concerned following the instructions of the state police.
The Mamata Banerjee-faction of Trinamool Congress approached the Calcutta High Court against this move by the state police and on Thursday the Calcutta High Court’s single-judge bench of Justice Sougata Bhattacharya granted the Trinamool Congress faction, led by Mamata Banerjee, conditional and limited access to three party accounts that have been subjected to debit restrictions by the bank authorities following the instructions of the state police.
However, Thursday’s court order did not end the complications for Trinamool Congress faction led by Mamata Banerjee, since in the meantime and earlier this month, the ED, which is conducting a parallel investigation on these three bank accounts in connection with the money laundering angle also decided to freeze these three bank accounts.
Therefore, in order to get relief from these continuing complications following ED’s move on this count, the Mamata Banerjee-faction again approached the Calcutta High Court’s another single-judge bench of Justice Krishna Rao challenging ED’s move in the matter.
The petition had been admitted by Justice Rao’s bench and the matter will come up for hearing on July 13.
Meanwhile, debit restrictions have been issued on 12 additional bank accounts held by Trinamool Congress in different public and private sector commercial banks held by the party from Friday following instructions of the West Bengal Police.
Sources aware of the development said that the combined deposits amount with these 12 bank accounts on which debit restrictions have been imposed from Friday is more than Rs 550 crore.
This means that the combined deposit amount in the 15 bank accounts on which debit instructions have been imposed in two phases so far is near about Rs 1,000 crore.
(IANS)
