Kolkata: Parallel hearings on three petitions and counter-petitions concerning the controversies surrounding the Enforcement Directorate’s raid and search operation last week at the Indian Political Action Committee office and its co-founder Pratik Jain’s residence are scheduled to be heard by Calcutta High Court’s single-judge bench of Justice Suvra Ghosh later on Wednesday.
The raids were conducted at the I-PAC office in Salt Lake on the northern outskirts of Kolkata, and Jain’s residence on Loudon Street in Central Kolkata.
Originally, the matters had come up for hearing at Justice Ghosh Bench on January 9, which was a day after the ED’s parallel raid and search operations took place at these two places.
However, the hearing could not happen on that day since Justice Ghosh left the courtroom amid an excessive crowd at the time of the hearing. She then fixed Wednesday as the next date of hearing.
Precisely, keeping that commotion within the courtroom on January 9 in mind, Calcutta High Court’s Chief Justice Sujoy Paul on Tuesday issued a notification ordering restricted entry within the courtroom at the time of hearing, allowing only the parties and counsels related to the three petitions.
However, a slight confusion is prevailing on whether Justice Ghosh will ultimately hear the matter, considering that a petition by ED in the same matter is also pending at the Supreme Court.
The petition scheduled to be heard at Justice Ghost’s bench is the one filed by ED, accusing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of misusing her constitutional position by allegedly creating hindrances to the official duties of central agency officials during raid and search operations at these two places on January 8.
The ED has also sought a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the matter, making the Chief Minister a party in the case. It has also pleaded for an investigation into the role of senior police officials accompanying the Chief Minister while she stormed the two places, where raid and search operations by the ED officials were on, and reportedly left the places after collecting some paper files and electronic documents.
There were two other counter-petitions in the matter, one by Pratik Jain himself and the other by Trinamool Congress.
In its counter-petition, the Trinamool has alleged that since I-PAC is acting as the voter-strategy agency of the party, the ED raid was intended to seize several documents related to its poll strategy for the 2026 Assembly polls and share the same with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
(IANS)
