Supreme Court to hear on January 15 ED’s case for probe into ‘obstruction’ of I-PAC raids by West Bengal CM

The Supreme Court is scheduled on January 15 to hear a a petition filed by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the alleged obstruction of its raids at the offices of political consultancy firm I-PAC and its co-founder Pratik Jain in Kolkata by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, State officials and other individuals.

The petition is listed before a Bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Vipul M. Pancholi.

The ED has arraigned the State of West Bengal, Ms. Banerjee, the State’s Director General of Police, the Kolkata Police Commissioner and the Deputy Commissioner of Police South Kolkata along with the CBI.

The State has already filed a caveat in the case to forestall the passing of any order by the apex court without hearing it.

The hearing would come a day after the Calcutta High Court, on Wednesday (January 14, 2025), disposed of a Trinamool Congress petition after the ED submitted that it had not seized anything from the premises of the I-PAC and Mr. Jain. The ED had blamed Ms. Banerjee for removing records and devices from the sites of the raids. The High Court, however, adjourned the ED plea against the obstruction of its raids after Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, for the Central agency, informed about the pendency of a similar petition in the Supreme Court.

Ms. Banerjee has countered that the raids were a deliberate attempt to derail the Trinamool Congress ahead of the Assembly elections in 2026.The ruling party in the State had consulted with the firm over the past few years. I-PAC had helped the party shape its electoral and political strategy in the 2021 Assembly election and subsequent elections in West Bengal.

The anti-money laundering agency argued that the intervention of the Chief Minister, on the other hand, had upset a lawful investigation into coal smuggling. Vital evidence, both physical and electronic, connected to the probe was removed and the raids bulldozed, amounting to a “gross obstruction of justice”.

The sites of the raids descended into scenes of a “showdown” through the illegal intervention of the State machinery, the ED has submitted in its petition before the apex court.

The ED said that the raid was connected to a probe into a coal smuggling syndicate and entities linked to hawala money, and was conducted strictly in accordance with established legal safeguards.