Supreme Court Stays HC Proceedings In PILs Seeking Probe Into Assets Of 19 Trinamool Congress Leaders

The Supreme Court on Friday(September 9) stayed the proceedings in two PILs before the Calcutta High Court seeking probe into the assets of 19 leaders of the Trinamool Congress(TMC), including some current ministers in the West Bengal Government.

On August 8, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court had added the Directorate of Enforcement(ED) as a party in the PILs. Challenging the High Court order, TMC MLA Swarna Kamal Saha approached the Supreme Court.

Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Saha, submitted before a bench led by Chief Justice of India UU Lalit that even though there was no factual foundation in the writ petitions, the High Court issued a direction to implead the ED as a party.

Issuing notice on the special leave petition filed by the TMC MLA, the bench, also comprising Justices S Ravindra Bhat and PS Narasimha, stayed the further proceedings in the PILs before the High Court. Notice is made returnable on September 26.

The impugned order was passed by the High Court division bench comprising Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj on August 8 while considering the PILs filed by Biplab Kumar Chowdhury and Arijit Ganguly who questioned the growth in the assets of 19 Trinamool legislators. The petitioners, who filed the PILs in 2017, relied on the election affidavits filed by the leaders to contend that their assets have witnessed an astronomical growth.

The leaders named in the petitions include seven ministers Firhad Hakim (also the Kolkata mayor), Bratya Basu, Jyotipriyo Mullick, Maloy Ghatak, Arup Roy, Javed Ahmed Khan and Seuli Saha.

Apart from them, MLAs Sovan Chatterjee, Iqbal Ahmed, MP Arjun Singh, Swarnakamal Saha, Siliguri Mayor Gautam Deb, Biman Banerjee etc., are also named in the petitions.

Case Title : Swarnakamal Saha versus Biplab Kumar Chowdhary and others | Diary No.25496/2022

Click here to read/download the order