Once again, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee has been summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for questioning in the coal smuggling case. He has been directed to appear before the ED office in Delhi on October 21.
On the other hand, Rujira Banerjee, wife of Abhishek Banerjee, has approached the Delhi High Court challenging the Enforcement Directorate’s complaint against her before a trial court in a money laundering case linked to an alleged coal scam in West Bengal.
The matter, which was listed before Justice Yogesh Khanna on Wednesday but could not be taken up for hearing on account of the non-availability of the judge, will be heard on October 8.
Not just Abhishek or Rujira, the Enforcement Directorate summoned IPS Gyanwant Singh too. Singh has been summoned for the third time and has been directed to appear in the Delhi office of the ED on October 11.
Singh was interrogated for about five hours at the ED headquarters in Delhi. Even after that, there is a lot of information that the central investigating agency has to know. The ED claims that Gyanwant Singh needs to be asked about those issues. That is why he was summoned to Delhi on October 11. He has been asked to cooperate in the investigation by confronting the investigating officer there.
A total of seven IPS officers are on the ED’s interrogation list— IPS Koteshwar Rao, Silva Murugan, Shyam Singh, Rajiv Mishra, Sukesh Jain and Gyanwant Singh. They will be questioned for the progress of the investigation, the ED said. They had come to the CBI scanner earlier and it has also questioned several other leads.
Some time ago, the ED interrogated Abhishek Banerjee for 9 hours on the same issue. Gyanwant Singh was in charge of the security of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during the Assembly polls. The CBI had earlier questioned him. Gyanwant appeared at the Nizam’s Palace in May. According to sources, at a time when coal smuggling was rampant in the state, the state’s ADG law and order was prudent. Earlier, he was the IGO of the western region. This coal smuggling is going on in a wide area of the western region. It is learned that the name of Gyanwant Singh came up after interrogating Anup Maji alias Lala, one of the accused in the coal scam.
On the other hand, the CBI made the first arrest in the coal scam on September 28. At the same time four people were arrested— Joydev Mandal, Narayan Nanda, Nirad Mandal and Gurupada Maji.