Kolkata, Jan 9 (IANS) The Calcutta High Court on Friday turned down the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) plea for an urgent hearing of the case related to controversies over its simultaneous raid and search operations on Thursday at the office of the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) and at the residence of I-PAC co-founder Pratik Jain.

The ED approached the bench headed by acting Chief Justice Sujoy Paul with the plea for an urgent hearing after the hearing at the single-judge bench of Justice Suvra Ghosh earlier in the day could not happen because of an excessive crowd within the courtroom at the time of the beginning of the hearing.

With Justice Ghosh leaving the courtroom, the next date of hearing was scheduled on January 14.

Turning down ED’s plea for an urgent hearing, the division bench said that the hearing would happen on the scheduled date as fixed by the single-judge bench of Justice Ghosh.

It is learnt that ED even pleaded that in case the hearing could not be conducted on an urgent basis before January 14, by Justice Ghosh’s bench, it could be shifted to any other single-judge bench. That plea was also turned down by the division bench.

Initially, the ED made a verbal appeal at the division bench, which asked the central agency’s counsel to submit a written appeal in the matter. After counsel moved that appeal, the division bench refused to accept that plea and observed that since a judicial order in the matter had already been passed, the hearing would happen on January 14 as decided by Justice Ghosh’s bench.

The main petition in the case was from the ED, accusing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of misusing her constitutional position by allegedly creating hindrances to the official duties of central agency officials during raid and search operations at these two places conducted on Thursday.

The ED had also sought a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the matter, making the Chief Minister a party in the case. It has also pleaded for an investigation into the role of senior police officials accompanying the Chief Minister while she stormed the two places, while raid and search operations by the ED officials were on, and reportedly left the places after collecting some paper files and electronic documents.

There were two other counter-petitions in the matter, one by Pratik Jain himself and the other by Trinamool Congress. In its counter-petition, the Trinamool had alleged that since I-PAC is acting as the voter-strategy agency of the party, the ED raid was intended to seize several documents related to its poll strategy for the 2026 Assembly polls and share the same with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

–IANS

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