A day after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) froze several bank accounts operated by the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC), the Calcutta High Court on Thursday, 9 July allowed the party to operate three accounts that had been frozen by the West Bengal Police, to meet its day-to-day expenses.
Stating that it found no sufficient grounds to justify the freezing of the TMC bank accounts, the high court allowed the party to operate the three accounts until 30 September, when the matter will next be heard, with former Calcutta High Court judge Subrata Talukdar to act as special officer to regulate the operation of the accounts.
The court also pulled up West Bengal Police for acting in haste on complaints filed by rebel Trinamool MLAs. “This complaint was lodged on 18 June and the accounts were seized the very next day on 19 June… as if the complaint was lodged only to seize these accounts. What was the material on the 18th… why is everything happening with lightning speed? When a poor citizen approaches a police station, the police rarely takes action at such speed; and yet in this case, a complaint is lodged and immediately the accounts are frozen?” asked Justice Saugata Bhattacharya.
The court also questioned the conduct of the rebel TMC MLAs, who are the complainants in the case. It observed that before the Assembly election results were declared on 4 May, the complainants had themselves utilised funds from the same accounts while contesting as TMC candidates, but alleged that tainted money had been deposited in the accounts only after they joined another faction.
Solicitor-general Tushar Mehta flew down from New Delhi to defend the state police’s action, while senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi represented the TMC.
“If you can cripple a political party like this then it erodes the level playing field,” Singhvi argued. Referring to the speed with which the action was taken, he quipped, “I wish things in this country worked so fast in all cases.”
The complaint, he pointed out, was “vague” and devoid of any specific allegations linking the accounts to the proceeds of crime. The debit freeze had paralysed the functioning of a recognised political party, he submitted.
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