Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed the authorities of a private bank to file an affidavit by July 7 stating the total amount deposited in the frozen bank accounts of the Trinamool Congress.
Justice Saugata Bhattacharya also asked Trinamool, bank authorities and the state government to submit their written submissions on the case by July 7. It asked the state to submit the status report of its probe into the frozen accounts.
Justice Bhattacharya gave the directives while hearing a petition filed by Trinamool challenging the bank authorities’ decision to freeze the party’s bank accounts. Trinamool had claimed that ₹440 crore were deposited in the bank accounts under debit freeze.
The freeze had followed complaints lodged by 10 MLAs aligned with Ritabrata Banerjee at the cyber crime police station under the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate last month. These legislators of Trinamool’s rebel bloc sought registration of an FIR and a detailed probe into the accounts, questioning the source of the funds and transactions routed through them.
According to a copy of one complaint, the rebel MLAs requested investigators to determine whether the money originated from lawful sources or alleged illegal activities, including suspected cut-money collections, diversion of public funds and proceeds from scams.
Rebel TMC leader and former minister Aroop Biswas, on June 12, wrote a letter to the manager of a private bank’s Central Plaza branch in Calcutta, seeking curbs on the operation of the party’s bank accounts, citing an ongoing dispute over the organisation’s authority and control. Biswas claimed he had written the letter in his capacity as the TMC’s treasurer, a claim refuted by the Trinamool faction close to former chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
Acting on these complaints and Biswas’s letter, Trinamool’s bank accounts were frozen, prompting the Kalighat faction of the party to move court. Bank authorities and the state government were made respondents to the case.
Appearing for the Mamata faction of the TMC, Abhishek Manu Singhvi claimed that there was no legal basis for freezing the accounts and it was done on “vague allegations”. Singhvi urged the court to direct the bank authorities to lift the freeze immediately.
Singhvi questioned if bank authorities could freeze the accounts of a political party merely based on the complaint filed by a faction.
Also appearing for the TMC, former advocate general Kishor Datta said: “The party has to pay salaries to its workers and incurs regular expenses. Until the freeze on the accounts is lifted, the payments cannot be made.... Freezing the accounts is a political move.”
Appearing for the state, solicitor-general Tushar Mehta said that at a time when two separate factions are in operation, the court should not issue any directive.
He said that the court should wait till the Election Commission of India decides which faction was the original party.
After hearing all the sides, Justice Bhattacharya refrained from defreezing the accounts for now and asked all stakeholders for their submissions by next Tuesday.