The Enforcement Directorate has again summoned Trinamool Congress national secretary Abhishek Banerjee in a money laundering case linked to an alleged coal scam in West Bengal. Abhishek, nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, has been directed to appear before the ED officials at the agency headquarters in Delhi on March 29.
Reports said Abhishek’s statement will be recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and he is likely to be confronted with the “evidences” gathered by the investigators.
Abhishek, an MP from Diamond Harbour, had been questioned earlier by the agency on March 21. The ED summoned him after the Delhi High Court on March 11 dismissed a plea by Abhishek and his wife challenging the agency notices asking them to appear in the national capital instead of Kolkata.
The agency lodged the case under the provisions of the PMLA based on a November 2020 FIR registered by the CBI that alleged a multi-crore coal pilferage scam related to Eastern Coalfields Limited mines in the state's Kunustoria and Kajora areas in and around Asansol.
Local coal operator Anup Majhi alias Lala is alleged to be the prime suspect in the case.
The ED had claimed that the parliamentarian was a beneficiary of funds obtained from this illegal trade. It has arrested two people in this case till now.
One of them is Vikas Mishra, the brother of TMC youth wing leader Vinay Mishra, who is stated to have left the country sometime back and and renounced his Indian citizenship.
The second person arrested in the case is former Inspector in-charge of Bankura police station Ashok Kumar Mishra.
Quoting the recorded statement of an unidentified "close associate" of Majhi, the ED had earlier alleged that he had been running his "illegal coal mining business smoothly by managing senior functionaries of a political party of West Bengal through Inspector Mishra."
The statement of this unidentified "witness" furnished by the ED in the remand note stated that "it is a known fact that Vinay Mishra collected money from illegal coal mining of Majhi and his associates for his closely associated political boss in the present ruling party; that Vinay Mishra is youth leader of TMC and he is very close to Abhishek Banerjee and that he (Vinay Mishra) is the eyes and ears of Abhishek Banerjee."
The ED had earlier claimed that the Mishra brothers received "proceeds of crime worth Rs 730 crore on behalf of some influential persons and for themselves" in this case involving an estimated amount of Rs 1,352 crore.
With PTI inputs
