The Enforcement Directorate has told the Supreme Court that Mamata Banerjee illegally snatched documents, including “suspected” incriminating material, that it had collected during raids on I-PAC in Calcutta as part of a money-laundering probe.
The agency has reiterated its plea for the registration of FIRs for “theft”, “robbery” and other offences against Mamata and the police bosses accompanying her, and for the transfer of the investigation into the events of January 8 to the CBI.
The Bengal chief minister had, accompanied by senior police officers and bureaucrats, entered two premises of political consultancy I-PAC — her party’s election strategist — that the ED was raiding.
She carried away what she said were “sensitive” election-related documents of her party that she accused the central agency of planning to hand over to the BJP. The ED says the raids were apolitical, related to a coal theft racket.
In its counter-affidavit before the top court, the ED has said that Mamata’s assertion that she only took away “confidential and proprietary information” of Trinamool, that too with the agency’s permission, “is denied”.
“Once such material has been forcibly retrieved and taken away, it becomes difficult to identify what all was taken away and determine whether or not they were only confidential and proprietary information of the party or whether they also contained information relating to the offence which was being investigated into by the ED,” the agency has said.
“…Even assuming without admitting that IPAC may have held confidential proprietary information of AITC (Trinamool)… (it) does not justify the criminal acts of the Respondent No. 2 (Mamata).....”
According to the ED: “Material evidences were gathered which disclosed that ₹20 crores of proceeds of crime arising from illegal coal mining were used through inter-state hawala networks, layered through a chain of facilitators, converted into cash at Goa and channelled into IPAC’s operational framework by being handed over to persons executing its work. It was under these circumstances that the search was conducted.”
The agency claims that during its search of I-PAC chief Pratik Jain’s Park Street home, Mamata, the Calcutta police commissioner and the deputy commissioner (South) took possession of “digital devices and documents” that were “suspected to be relevant to the PMLA (money-laundering) investigation”.
It says Mamata entered Jain’s premises around 12.05pm despite requests from ED officer Prashant Chandila not to interfere with theproceedings.
“However, in complete violation of law, Ms. Mamata Banarjee, after placing the concerned officers conducting the search in wrongful restraint, forcibly took possession of the digital devices and documents from Sh. Prashant Chandila and left the premises at around 12:15 hrs,” the ED says.
Later, at I-PAC’s (Salt Lake) office, ED officials were collecting documents and the backup of a computer and the “email dump” of I-PAC employee Ishan Taneja when Mamata and her officials walked in around 12.40pm, the agency has asserted.
They allegedly took away documents collected and indexed by ED officials. The collection of the computer backup and email dump was stopped midway, and Mamata forcibly took away the computer, the ED has claimed.
It has added that on Mamata’s instructions, the state police seized the mobile phones of I-PAC employees.
“The Respondent No. 2 (Mamata) has admitted this fact at Para 12 and 13 of her counter affidavit. Although she states that she was permitted to do so without objection by the ED officials, this assertion is vehemently denied,” the ED says.
“The heavy presence of police personnel to the tune of hundreds itself demonstrates coercion by the state police and interference with lawful search under the PMLA by the ED officers and there was no question of acceding to any request for handing over incriminating digital devices in the middle of taking digital backups.”