SUPREME COURT: HC PROCEEDINGS STAYED IN PILS SEEKING PROBE INTO ARREST OF 19 TRINAMOOL CONGRESS LEADERS

On Friday, the Supreme Court on September 9 in the case Swarnakamal Saha versus Biplab Kumar Chowdhary and others observed and has 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.

Thus, on August 8, the Division bench of the Calcutta High Court had added the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) as a party in the PILs. The court while challenging the High Court order, TMC MLA Swarna Kamal Saha approached the Supreme Court.

The Counsel, 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. A writ petition issued by the High Court in a direction to implead the ED as a party.

The Court issued a notice on the special leave petition filled filed by the TMC MLA, also, the bench comprising of Justice S Ravindra Bhat and the Justice PS Narasimha observed and has stayed the further proceedings in the PILs before the High Court. Notice is made returnable on September 26.

However, 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 Arijit Ganguly and Biplab Kumar Chowdhury who questioned the growth in the assets of 19 Trinamool legislators. The petitioners, who filed the PILs in 2017, relying on the election affidavits filed by the leaders to contend that their assets have witnessed an astronomical growth.

In the petitions, the leader named includes 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, the leaders name in the petition also includes MLAs Sovan Chatterjee, Iqbal Ahmed, MP Arjun Singh, Swarnakamal Saha, Siliguri Mayor Gautam Deb, Biman Banerjee etc

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