Kolkata: The division bench of Calcutta High Court’s Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bhardwaj on Monday directed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to be a party in a PIL regarding the assets and property details of 19 heavyweight Trinamool Congress leaders, including present seven ministers.
Based on the affidavits filed by these leaders with the Election Commission of India (ECI) while filing their nominations for various elections, in 2017 one Biplab Chowdhury had filed a PIL about the growth of assets of these TMC leaders.
The PIL includes the names of state forest minister Jyotipriyo Mullick, state law minister Maloy Ghatak, state disaster management minister Javed Ahmed Khan, Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) Mayor Firhad Hakim, state education minister Bratya Basu, principal financial advisor to the state government Amit Mitra and TMC MLA Madan Mitra.
The PIL also has the names of two dead TMC ministers including former panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee and former state cooperation minister Sadhan Pande.
Welcoming the move, state BJP spokesperson Shamik Bhattacharya said that TMC cannot say that it is a ‘conspiracy’ of the saffron camp.
It may be noted that currently suspended TMC leader and former minister Partha Chatterjee and his close aide Arpita Mukherjee have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the WBSSC recruitment scam. Heavyweight TMC leader Anubrata Mandal is also under the CBI scanner for his alleged involvement in a cattle smuggling scam.
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