New Delhi, Feb 2 The West Bengal government has challenged in the Supreme Court the maintainability of an Enforcement Directorate’s plea regarding the alleged interference by the state machinery in its raid at the Kolkata office of I-PAC, citing the pendency of a similar matter before the Calcutta High Court.
On January 15, a bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Vipul Pancholi had issued notices to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the West Bengal government, DGP Rajeev Kumar and other senior police officers on the ED's petition seeking a CBI probe against them for allegedly obstructing raids at the premises of political consultancy I-PAC.
The top court had said the chief minister's alleged "obstruction" in ED's probe is "very serious" while agreeing to examine if state’s law-enforcing agencies can interfere with any central agency's investigation into any serious offence.
It had also stayed FIRs against the ED’s officials who raided I-PAC on January 8.
Filing its response to the ED’s plea, the TMC-led state government said that as a similar matter was pending before the Calcutta High Court, there cannot be "parallel proceedings” before two constitutional courts.
It also said that the central agency did not have fundamental rights to file a writ petition before the apex court.
It also claimed that the ED did not have the power to conduct “omnibus search and seizure” and that the agency had violated privileged communications.
The ED, in its plea, had alleged obstruction by the state, including by the CM, in its search operation at the I-PAC office and the premises of its director Pratik Jain in connection with an alleged coal-pilferage scam.
The ED's plea in the apex court followed January 8 events when the agency's officials faced obstructions during its raids at the office of I-PAC in Salt Lake and the residence of Pratik Jain in Kolkata.
The probe agency has claimed that Banerjee entered the premises and took away "key" evidence related to the probe
