Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday issued a notice for interrogation to former Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Subhashish Chakraborty in connection with the central agency’s ongoing investigation into three frozen bank accounts, which hold a total deposit of Rs 440 crore.
Chakraborty is currently treasurer of the faction in the Trinamool Congress, led by the former West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, and her nephew, the party’s general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee.
In the notice served to Chakraborty on Wednesday afternoon, he has been asked to be present at the ED’s Salt Lake office on the northern outskirts of Kolkata by this week.
Chakraborty told media persons in the morning that since he needed to discuss the matter with his party leadership, he had sought some time from the central investigating agency to appear for interrogation.
Earlier, the ED summoned Pawan Jaju and Ramesh Jaju, two directors of private aviation company Carewell, in a case related to fictitious transactions from one of three bank accounts of Trinamool Congress. Their statements were also recorded then.
As per information gathered by an official of the ED, the investigation arm of the Union Finance Ministry, Trinamool Congress had rented planes and helicopters from this private aviation company. The ED claimed that the company was given over Rs 160 crore from Trinamool Congress party funds from one of these three accounts.
Earlier this week, on July 20, Calcutta High Court’s single-judge bench of Justice Krishna Rao refused an interim stay on the decision of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to freeze three bank accounts of the Trinamool Congress with combined deposits of Rs 440 crore.
Following the refusal of the bench to entertain the plea of the Mamata Banerjee-led faction for an interim stay on the ED-imposed freeze on these bank accounts, “debit restrictions” have continued till further orders.
The ‘debit restrictions’ on these three accounts were first imposed by the bank authorities following the instructions from the police. Earlier this month, another single-judge bench of Justice Sougata Bhattacharya allowed a “partial and temporary withdrawal” of the debit restrictions following the instructions imposed by the state police.
However, in the meantime, the ED also enforced debit restrictions on these three bank accounts because of allegedly suspicious transactions of Rs 164 crore. Thereafter, the Mamata Banerjee-led faction again approached the bench of Justice Rao with a petition seeking a stay on the ED-imposed freeze.
The matter came up for hearing at Justice Rao’s bench on July 20, and after a detailed hearing, Justice Rao refused to grant an interim stay on the ED-imposed freeze.
Justice Rao’s bench observed that the court, at this point, will not interfere with the ED’s decision.
(IANS)
