Kolkata, January 14 (). A single-judge bench of Justice Suvra Ghosh of the Calcutta High Court will on Wednesday hear a parallel hearing on three petitions and counter-petitions related to the disputes related to the Enforcement Directorate’s raid and search operation at the office of the Indian Political Action Committee and the house of its co-founder Prateek Jain last week.
The hearing could not be held earlier because Justice Ghosh left the courtroom due to the huge crowd in the courtroom at the time of the hearing. After this he fixed the date of next hearing on Wednesday.
Notably, keeping in mind the chaos that broke out in the court room on January 9, Calcutta High Court Chief Justice Sujoy Paul issued a notification on Tuesday, ordering to limit entry in the court room at the time of hearing, with only parties and lawyers associated with the three petitions being allowed.
However, it is not clear whether Justice Ghosh will ultimately hear the case, as an ED petition in the same matter is also pending in the Supreme Court.
The petition which is to be heard in Justice Ghosh’s bench has been filed by ED. In this, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been accused of misusing her constitutional position by obstructing the official work of central agency officials during the raid and search operation at these two places on January 8.
The ED has also demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigation into the matter and has made the Chief Minister a party in the case. It has also sought investigation into the role of senior police officers who accompanied the Chief Minister to the two places where ED officials were conducting raids and search operations, and allegedly collected some paper files and electronic documents and left from there.
Trinamool, in its counter-petition, has alleged that since I-PAC is functioning as the party’s voter-strategy agency, the purpose of the ED raid was to seize several documents related to its election strategy for the 2026 assembly elections and share them with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
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SAK/AS