The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of West Bengal police on Saturday summoned Abhishek Banerjee, National general secretary of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), in connection with its probe into the forged signature case.
Allegations surfaced that the signatures of some TMC MLAs were forged on the May 19 letter, which the party sent to the assembly secretariat nominating TMC MLA Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as the leader of the opposition (LoP) in the state assembly.
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The complaint was lodged at Kolkata's Hare Street police station on behalf of the assembly secretariat on Wednesday and the matter was handed over to the CID, officials said.
“A letter has been served to Banerjee on Saturday afternoon. He has been summoned to the Bhabani Bhawan (headquarter of the state police) on Monday at 12 noon,” a CID official said.
Police earlier said that the TMC submitted its first letter to the assembly secretariat on May 6 nominating Chattopadhyay as the LoP. The letter was, however, rejected as it was not sent by the TMC legislative party, which is mandatory.
{{/usCountry}}Police earlier said that the TMC submitted its first letter to the assembly secretariat on May 6 nominating Chattopadhyay as the LoP. The letter was, however, rejected as it was not sent by the TMC legislative party, which is mandatory.
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When a second letter signed by TMC MLAs was submitted on May 19, it was found that some of the signatures did not match with the assembly records.
A five-member CID team reached the Shantiniketan Building on Harish Mukherjee Road in south Kolkata around 1.30pm on Friday. A man, who identified himself as a worker in the house, claimed that Banerjee was not there in the house.
Meanwhile, Banerjee returned to his Kalighat Road residence from Beleghata where he met the family of Biswajit Pattnayak, a TMC worker, who was allegedly killed in a post-poll clash earlier this month.
“I don’t stay at Shantiniketan. If they need to meet me, they have to come here. I don’t know why the CID have come. Only they can tell. I haven’t bene served any notice yet. You are saying that CID have come to serve me a notice in connection with the forged signature case. If you know everything and the CID has already told you, then I have nothing to say here. If they serve me a notice, I will tackle it legally. I haven’t bowed down...I can’t be suppressed. I am made of a different metal,” Banerjee said.
The CID team waited at the Shantiniketan building for an hour and then reached Banerjee’s Kalighat Road residence to serve him notice.
“They have served a notice. I have received it. I have not yet seen the contents. I will take legal advice. I have nothing to hide, Earlier I have cooperated with the ED and CBI [Central Bureau of Investigation] and appeared before them for questioning at least 10 to 12 times. The agencies are being used to serve political vendetta,” he said.
Earlier the Kolkata Municipal Corporation had served notices to Banerjee’s firm in connection with deviation in building plans in some buildings linked to his firm Leaps and Bounds Private Limited, including the Shantiniketan Building at 188A Harish Mukherjee Road.
“I have replied to the notices served by the KMC and have already moved the Calcutta high court in this regard,” he said.
The investigating agency questioned a few other TMC legislators in this connection on Friday including Kolkata's Chowringhee MLA Nayna Bandopadhyay, wife of TMC Lok Sabha member Sudip Bandopadhyay.
"They wanted to see my Aadhaar, PAN and other documents. I told them I was present at the meeting of the TMC legislative party and signed the document nominating Chattopadhyay," Nayna Bandopadhyay said on Friday.
“What has forged signature to do with political vendetta? Such allegations are baseless. Corruption hasn’t spared the TMC MLAs. Allegations have surfaced that their signatures have been forged. This is unprecedented as far as my knowledge goes. The party’s National general secretary has to defend the party. This is very normal,” Debjit Sarkar, BJP spokesperson said.