Blow To TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee: SC Junks His Plea Against ED Summons In Job Scam

Pics courtesy Sangbad Pratidin

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday (September 9) dismissed the appeals filed by Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee and his wife, Rujira Banerjee, challenging the Enforcement Directorate’s summons in connection to a schools jobs scam case. They had moved the court as despite being residents of Kolkata—which is also the place of occurrence of the alleged graft— they were apparently being sent summons seeking their attendance in Delhi.

A bench comprising Justices Bela Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma pronounced the verdict in the matter. Earlier, the bench had reserved the judgment on August 13.

Banerjee, who was represented by Kapil Sibal, had argued that the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 should be applicable in case of the summons as the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002 does not specifically provide any procedure in the same regard.

The TMC MP had skipped several summons by the ED in the past.

The ED had named Banerjee in a chargesheet filed in June last year related to the recruitment scam. According to the agency, one person who paid TMC leaders to get a job in schools had alleged that the money he gave to TMC leader Kuntal Ghosh was handed over to Sujay Krishna Bhadra, another youth leader of Bengal’s ruling party who allegedly handled finance-related matters for Banerjee while he was president of the party.