The Supreme Court on Wednesday said chief minister Mamata Banerjee “barging” into I-PAC premises during the Enforcement Directorate's raids in Calcutta in January and “obstructing” the process was an “unusual and unhappy situation” without precedent.
The court said the investigating agencies cannot be left remediless to challenge such action by an elected leader on technical grounds. The lawyers appearing for the Bengal government had contended that the ED’s case under Article 32, which says it is the fundamental right of a citizen to move the apex court for the enforcement of their rights that may have been violated, did not hold water as the central probe agency was not a “citizen”.
The court said the law would have to take into account the need for judicial intervention.
The apex court said that “tomorrow another elected chief minister may resort to a similar strategy to thwart an investigation by a statutory body”.
“Here we have a situation where according to them (ED), a chief minister barges in and obstructs a statutory work. Is it your case that the ED cannot move either this court under Article 32 or the high court under Article 226? So will the ED be remediless?” Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra, heading the bench, told senior advocates Shyam Divan, Kapil Sibal and others appearing for the Bengal government.
“This is an unusual situation, an unhappy situation. This has not happened before,” Justice Mishra added.
The bench, which also included Justice N.V. Anjaria, was dealing with a petition filed by the ED seeking a CBI probe and the registration of criminal cases for theft, dacoity and other offences against Mamata and several police officers who it accused of forcibly entering the I-PAC premises during the raid in connection with money-laundering offences.
I-PAC is Trinamool’s long-time poll consultant.
The Bengal government’s counsel had argued that the only remedy available to the ED was to move a petition under Article 131, which empowers the top court to deal with disputes between the Centre and the states or between states.
Divan also argued that filing the petition under Article 32 also violated the federal structure of the Constitution and it would set a bad precedent and trigger a flurry of such appeals from different government departments.
However, the bench brushed aside the argument, saying: “The law has to evolve according to new situations. There cannot be a vacuum. It cannot be that there is no remedy in law to such a situation.”
It added: “We will decide the issue if a new situation arises…. Some other day, some other chief minister may enter some other office, then who will decide?”
The arguments will continue on Thursday.