Kolkata: Maneka Gambhir, the sister-in-law of Abhishek Banerjee, Trinamool Congress national general secretary, reached the office of Enforcement Directorate (ED)here late Sunday night for questioning. Her presence at the office at that odd hour was prompted by an error in the mention of timing of appearance in the ED notice served to her
It was learnt that the notice served to her at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport on Saturday night, when she tried to board a flight to Bangkok, mentioned the time and date of her appearance at the office as “12.30 AM on September 12, 2022.”
Accordingly, she reached the ED office at the mentioned time along with her counsel Soumen Mohanti. However, none of the central agency officials were present there at that time. Gambhir and counsel waited there for around ten minutes and left thereafter.
Later the ED officials confirmed that there was a typing error in the notice that was served to her and instead of “12.30 PM on September 12,2022”, it was written as “12.30 AM on September 12,2022” ED sources said that their officials were currently discussing with the higher authorities on the next course of action.
To recall, Gambhir, who is under probe by the ED in connection with the multi-crore coal scam, was stopped from travelling abroad on Saturday night following an objection by the ED.
She was stopped at the immigration department soon after she submitted her ticket and passport there before boarding a flight to Bangkok. Later, she was denied boarding on grounds that a lookout notice had been issued against her in a particular case and hence she cannot leave the country.
As a supporting document, the immigration department furnished an email printout of a notice from the ED, through which the latter had summoned her to be present at the ED office in Kolkata for questioning in a particular case. In that notice the error in the mention of timing of appearance happened.
(IANS)
