The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday served a second summons on TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, this time asking his entire family, including his parents and his wife Rujira Narula Banerjee, to appear at the CGO complex in Kolkata.
The summons has been sent in connection with the role of Leaps and Bounds, a company owned by the Banerjees, in the multi-crore recruitment scam. Chief operating officer of the company Sujay Krishna Bhadra is in jail. While Abhishek is the chief executive officer of the company, his wife and parents Lata and Amit Banerjee are directors.
“Abhishek has been asked to appear on October 9, while his parents have been asked to come on October 6 and 7 respectively... his wife has been asked to come on October 10,” an ED official said.
Meanwhile, a Division Bench of the Calcutta High on Wednesday refused to intervene in the earlier single-judge bench order directing the ED to ensure that the probe against Abhishek was not affected.
The single bench of Justice Amrita Sinha court had reprimanded and ordered the replacement of the investigating officer for the “fishy” investigation and demanded explanations in several areas of the probe. The single bench had wanted to know why no bank account of Abhishek, who is also the nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, had been mentioned apart from enquiring about a specific address at 188A Harish Mukherjee Road where Abhishek lived and the mention of which had been omitted by the agency.
Subsequently Abhishek, an MP from Diamond Harbour constituency, moved the division bench wondering whether the court which was monitoring the investigation had the power to supervise the probe.
The division bench while delivering Wednesday’s order said the ED was duty bound to satisfy the court by clearing its doubts. “Where is the problem if the court says the ED is acting like a novice and where is the problem to deliver the information of the property details that the court has been asking,” an advocate quoting the judges said.
Incidentally the ED had earlier submitted before the court that a huge amount of money raised from the recruitment scam had been laundered through the company in question.
“If she (Justice Sinha) had felt that there was smoke somewhere, she had sought documents to evaluate whether the smoke was still there or it had evaporated. What can the court do if it notices any lapse in the investigation process. The court can always seek documents. What is the problem with submitting those documents to the court?” Justice Sen questioned.
The judge also expressed his discontent over the slow pace of investigation by the ED in the school job case. “It has been almost 19 months since the investigation process started. This is a clear example of utter unprofessionalism,” he observed.
The Left and the Congress continued to allege “mutual setting” between the BJP and the TMC. “They will summon but not arrest him because Mamata is helping Modi and the RSS in their designs. One of their party mouthpieces have warned against taking the job scam too far so that it becomes helpful for the Left-Congress alliance in Bengal,” said CPI(M) State committee member Kalatan Dasgupta.
