Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, wife Rujira move Delhi HC against ED

KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and his wife Rujira moved Delhi High Court on Friday seeking to quash the fresh ED summons asking him to appear at Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) Khan Market offices of Head Investigative Unit (HIU) on September 21.
The couple has also sought the Delhi HC’s intervention to stop ED from issuing summons asking them to appear in Delhi for a case lodged in Bengal where ED already has a zonal office.
Abhishek and Rujira told the court that they have been asked to submit voluminous documents spanning the last 10 years relating to them, their families, finances, assets, foreign visits in connection with an FIR which was lodged in November 2020.
Abhishek and Rujira have also told the Delhi HC that while they have been repeatedly summoned, they have not been provided any details on the complaints against them or whether they were being asked to appear as witnesses or accused. They alleged that ED being a government body under the Union finance ministry “cannot be allowed to operate in secrecy or in an arbitrary and highhanded manner”.
In the petition, Abhishek alleged that he had appeared for a nine-hour long questioning by the ED in New Delhi and “was questioned at length and asked various intrusive and personal questions”. He alleged that the questions asked “had nothing to do with the investigation”.
Dubbing the questioning as a “roving and unguided inquiry” into his personal and “political affairs”, he alleged that this brought into question the “legitimacy of the process and the fairness of the investigation being carried out”.
Abhishek said CBI lodged the FIR in the illegal coal mining scam on November 28, 2020. ED lodged the case the very next day. But the agency, which has issued him several summons, has not shared the case details with him or his wife. He also alleged that based on statements which appeared in legal documents given to the court by the ED and in media statements attributed to ED officers, it appeared that they have already made up their mind that he was “one of the beneficiaries” and was “trying to derail the probe”.
Abhishek said his name didn’t figure in the FIR lodged by the CBI. He said given the backdrop, he was not even aware if the questioning would be used against him subsequently. Abhishek argued that he could not be asked to be a witness against himself and violate his fundamental rights under Article 20(3) of the Constitution.
Earlier, the ED had also moved Delhi HC seeking to quash summons against its officers asked to appear for questioning by the Kalighat police in an FIR lodged by Abhishek on April 3.-