The Calcutta high court on Thursday allowed the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress to use its three bank accounts, frozen in June, only for day-to-day expenses but under the supervision of a retired high court judge, lawyers who attended the hearing said.
The single bench of Justice Saugata Bhattacharya appointed retired judge Subrata Talukdar as special officer till September 30 to supervise the use of these accounts which the state police had directed to be frozen.
Directing that the special officer would receive a monthly honorarium of ₹1.25 lakh from these funds, the court said his signature would be mandatory for drawing money only to meet the party’s day-to-day expenses and legal expenditures.
“No other expenditure, major or minor, shall be permitted by the special officer,” the judge said.
The accounts were frozen on June 19, less than 24 hours after Biswanath Das, an MLA from the rebel TMC faction headed by Ritabrata Banerjee lodged a complaint with the Bidhan Nagar Police alleging diversion of funds.
Appearing for the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC, senior advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Kishore Datta called the charges baseless and argued that the party was facing great difficulty meeting its expenses.
{{/usCountry}}Appearing for the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC, senior advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Kishore Datta called the charges baseless and argued that the party was facing great difficulty meeting its expenses.
{{/usCountry}}The court questioned the speed at which the police acted on the complaint.
“Why such a lightening speed? When a poor citizen comes to a police station, the police is not activated,” the judge observed.
Appearing for the state, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued that the state acted to protect people’s money. He also opposed the unfreezing of the accounts.
Thursday’s hearing was only in connection with the case filed by the Bidhan Nagar Police. The next hearing will take place on September 21.
Lawyers said that the TMC may face legal hurdles while accessing the accounts.
The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday froze the approximately ₹440 crore currently in the three accounts as part of its ongoing probe into the alleged laundering of around ₹160 crore from the party’s funds through Carewell Aviation, a Kolkata-based company.
The money was allegedly used to buy an Embraer 600 plane and an Agusta chopper for the TMC but on paper Carewell Aviation was shown to be receiving rent from the TMC for letting the party use the aircraft.
During Thursday’s hearing Justice Bhattacharya said his court would not get into the dispute over which faction represents the real TMC since the matter was lying before the Election Commission of India. Both factions claimed the right to the party’s election symbol and the funds.
“If any faction is later recognised by ECI as the true TMC, an appropriate application can be made to the court,” he observed.