The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice on a plea by Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee against a Calcutta High Court decision refusing to stop the CBI and the ED from questioning him in connection with their probe into the West Bengal teacher recruitment scam.
“We cannot interfere with the investigation,” a Vacation Bench of Justices J.K. Maheshwari and P.S. Narasimha observed orally.
The Bench, however, stayed the part of the High Court order imposing a fine of ₹25 lakh on him.
The court listed the case for further hearing on July 10, after the summer vacation.
At one point, the Bench said “these matters do not touch ordinary people”.
Senior advocate A.M. Singhvi said the scam was “created to terrorise” certain people. Mr. Banerjee is a nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. He said Mr. Banerjee had no connection with the case.
‘Stage-managed matters’
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, for the West Bengal government, who intervened, submitted that these were “created or stage-managed matters”. He referred to a separate case concerning liquor scam in Chhattisgarh in which the Central agencies were gunning for the Bhupesh Baghel government. Mr. Sibal had similarly intervened for the State of Chhattisgarh in that case. He said West Bengal would be filing a separate special leave petition in the case.
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Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, for the Central agencies, said the case in West Bengal was hardly “stage-managed” as termed by the State government.
“A Minister and his aide were found with large amounts of cash,” the law officer objected.
He asked how the State governments were trying to intervene in every case in support of the accused.
“This is a recent trend,” Mr . Raju remarked.
“The ED has the power of investigation. That power is unfettered, it cannot be usurped”, he said.
Acting Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court T.S. Sivagnanam had reassigned the case to a new Bench on May 2.
This was done following a Supreme Court direction to the High Court to reassign the case to another Bench. The apex court had intervened on April 28 when Mr. Banerjee complained to it about an interview given by the earlier presiding judge, Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, in which the latter made comments about the sub judice case.
