The Calcutta high court on Wednesday disposed of the Trinamool Congress’s petition accusing the Enforcement Directorate (ED) of seizing the party’s sensitive data relating to its 2026 Bengal assembly elections after the federal agency said nothing was seized during the January 8 search at the residence and office of Pratik Jain, I-PAC director, TMC’s poll strategy consultant.
Justice Suvra Ghosh adjourned the hearing on the ED’s petition accusing chief minister Mamata Banerjee of storming into the agency’s search operations and taking away documents and a laptop, since the agency’s twin petitions in this regard are being heard by the Supreme Court.
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As in the past, the court proceedings were livestreamed, but only lawyers connected to the case were allowed into the courtroom. The judge had to adjourn proceedings on January 9 due to the ruckus created by the large number of lawyers present in the room.
Additional solicitor general SV Raju, who appeared virtually before the court, said TMC’s petition was “not maintainable” because it was filed by Suvashis Chakraborty who was neither present during the search operations nor did his petition mention any source of first-hand information.
Challenging Raju’s argument, TMC counsel Menaka Guruswamy said I-PAC had been authorised by TMC to work as its election strategist and Chakraborty was authorised by the party to file the petition.
“Raju showed the court two seizure lists that showed nothing had been seized by ED from Jain’s premises. The judge took cognisance of this and disposed of the TMC’s petition,” TMC Lok Sabha member and lawyer Kalyan Banerjee, who represented Mamata Banerjee in her capacity as the party chairperson, told reporters after the hearing.
Raju also requested the court to record his statement that nothing was seized by ED and that it was the chief minister who seized documents and electronic devices. Guruswamy, too, told the court that TMC would accept Raju’s statement on record.
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Raju also objected to Kalyan Banerjee speaking on behalf of Mamata Banerjee, saying the chief minister should first be made a party to the case, as she had taken away the sensitive documents.
On January 8, ED teams, accompanied by paramilitary personnel, searched about 10 premises across West Bengal and Delhi, including I-PAC’s Salt Lake office in Kolkata and Jain’s house at Loudon Street in south Kolkata. ED’s probe in the matter is based on a CBI FIR registered in November 2020 on allegations that coal was being illegally mined at Eastern Coalfields Ltd‘s mines in Kunustoria and Kajora in West Bengal.
Even as searches were underway, Banerjee stormed into Jain’s residence and seized documents and a laptop, accusing the ED of seizing her party’s internal documents and sensitive data relating to the 2026 assembly polls, including the candidate list.
ED’s petition accuses Banerjee of taking away evidence and seeks a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Shankar Ghosh, BJP’s chief whip in the state assembly, said the high court order disposing of the TMC petition made it clear that Mamata Banerjee stole sensitive documents related to the probe into coal smuggling and hawala transactions.
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