The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday disposed of the TMC's petition praying for protection of its data after the ED informed it that nothing was seized from I-PAC director Pratik Jain's office and home during its raids last week. TMC had moved the court seeking an order for preservation of personal and political data that the Enforcement Directorate may have seized during its raids on these two premises on January 8. Representing the central agency, Additional Solicitor General SV Raju submitted before the court that the agency had not seized anything from these two sites and that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who had visited these premises during the raids, took all the digital devices and records from there.
In view of the submissions made by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Union of India, nothing further remained to be dealt with in the matter, Justice Suvra Ghosh said and disposed of the TMC petition. The court also adjourned a separate petition filed by the ED seeking a CBI probe into the events of January 8, when Banerjee visited the political consultancy firm’s office in Salt Lake and its director’s residence on Loudon Street in south Kolkata during the raids. The high court adjourned the central agency's plea after the ASG stated that it had filed two petitions before the Supreme Court with prayers, which are almost identical to the present application before it. Raju argued that when a similar issue is pending before the apex court, a high court should refrain from hearing a matter on the same subject. The Supreme Court is slated to hear on Thursday the ED's plea, alleging interference and obstruction by the West Bengal government, including by Banerjee, in its probe and search operation at the I-PAC office and the premises of its director, Pratik Jain, in connection with an alleged coal-pilferage scam.
According to the cause list of the apex court, a bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Vipul Pancholi is likely to hear the matter. The West Bengal government has also filed a caveat in the top court, seeking that no order should be passed without hearing it in connection with the ED raids against the political-consultancy firm. During Wednesday's hearing, TMC’s counsel Menaka Guruswamy submitted that political parties have a right to privacy, as upheld by a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court. Banerjee had visited the agency's operation venues on January 8 and alleged that investigators were attempting to seize sensitive data of the TMC ahead of the upcoming assembly polls.
Following the developments, both the TMC and the ED had approached the high court. While the TMC in its writ petition sought judicial intervention to restrain the ED from "prejudice, misuse and dissemination" of seized data during the search operations, the agency moved the court alleging interference in its investigation, and prayed for transferring the probe to the CBI. The ED has named Banerjee and some state officials as respondents in its petition, while the TMC petition was filed against the Union of India. The hearing on Wednesday was held with restricted courtroom entry, allowing only lawyers connected with the cases. The direction to hold the hearings with regulated entry was given by Acting Chief Justice Sujoy Paul on Tuesday in view of unmanageable chaos inside the courtroom of Justice Ghosh on January 9, when these matters were to be taken up for hearing.
Justice Ghosh had adjourned the hearing till January 14, and left her chair after repeated requests to those not connected with the petitions to leave the courtroom fell on deaf ears. Raju also submitted that the TMC's petition seeking return or preservation of data which may have been seized is not maintainable unless Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is made a respondent in it. The state's director general of police and the commissioner of Kolkata Police also have to be made parties by the TMC in its petition, he added, and prayed for rejection of the TMC's petition. Guruswamy said the Supreme Court has adjudicated that there is a right to privacy, including on the basis of political ideology.
Asserting that they want free and fair elections, the TMC's counsel said: "We find it suspect that our political strategist's office was targeted in this way a few months before the assembly elections." Assembly elections in West Bengal are to be held within the next three months. The TMC won three consecutive assembly polls in the state since 2011.