Kolkata, June 10 (IANS) The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Wednesday moved the Calcutta High Court, challenging the alleged actions by the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at its party offices on Tuesday with regard to the legislators’ signatures mismatch case.

In the petition filed at the single-judge vacation court of Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya, on Wednesday morning, the four-time party Lok Sabha member and senior advocate, Kalyan Banerjee, said raids and search operations were conducted in the absence of the main witnesses of the case, and also scanning important party documents that were there at the two party offices where the simultaneous raids and search operations were conducted.

In its petition, Kalyan Banerjee also pointed out that the raids and search operations were conducted by ignoring the fact that the first hearing on the petition filed by Trinamool Congress general secretary and the party’s Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee, challenging the CID summons to him, is scheduled for Wednesday.

Justice Bhattacharyya had admitted the petition, and the matter will come up for hearing on Thursday. At the same time, Abhishek Banerjee’s earlier petition challenging the CID summons and also seeking protection from coercive police action, including arrest, which was originally scheduled later on Wednesday, will also be heard on Thursday by another single-judge bench of Justice Kaushik Chanda.

On Tuesday afternoon, the CID sleuths conducted simultaneous raids and search operations at a party office adjacent to the residence of former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at Kalighat in South Kolkata and another office at Camac Street in central Kolkata, where Abhishek Banerjee, also the nephew of Mamata Banerjee, used to operate from.

Abhishek Banerjee had already dodged three notices for interrogation from the CID in relation to the state investigating agency’s ongoing probe in the case of mismatches in the signatures of some Trinamool Congress legislators on a crucial resolution regarding appointment for key slots in the West Bengal assembly, which are reserved for the opposition bench.

–IANS

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