Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee has been issued fresh summons by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection to a money laundering case linked to an alleged coal scam. The move was taken after the high court rejected the plea of Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s nephew.
The probe led by the ED is based on an FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) over alleged mass coal pilferage in Eastern Coalfields Ltd mines in West Bengal’s Kunustoria and Kajora collieries.
Last year, the ED had told a Delhi court that the Lok Sabha MP from Diamond Harbour allegedly received funds obtained from the illegal mining. The agency also said that ahead of the Bengal elections, in the same year, illegal coal mining was ‘flourishing in the state under the “patronage” of the political party in power’.
Both Abhishek and his wife Rujira sought the court’s direction to set aside and quash the summons issued to them.The petitioners sought direction from the ED to not summon them to New Delhi and carry out the investigation in Kolkata, by saying that they are permanent residents of the city and the coal scam case pertains to the state of West Bengal.
The TMC general secretary and his wife have alleged that they have serious worries about the fairness of the investigation being carried out by the ED, “owing to the fact the respondent is adopting a pick and choose attitude with regard to certain people and is giving undue benefit and protection to complicit individuals and in return extracting false, baseless and malicious statements from them”, news agency PTI had reported.
(details awaited)
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