The battle between the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) over a January 8 raid at chief Pratik Jain's residence in West Bengal has reached a fresh twist.
A new report has debunked an earlier I-PAC claim that it had received an "unsecured loan" of Rs 13.5 crore in 2021 from a company called 'Ramasetu Infrastructure India (P) Limited', based in Haryana's Rohtak.
The political consultancy, which handles the CM Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress's IT operations, had also claimed it had repaid about Rs 1 crore of the loan in 2024-25.
According to the Indian Express report, such a company did not ever exist in official records, as per ROC records.
A visit to the address provided—‘3rd Floor, Ashoka Plaza, Delhi Road, Rohtak, Haryana’—also confirmed this, casting serious doubts on the I-PAC's claims.
Notably, the ROC records did show a similarly named entity, called 'Ramsetu Infrastructure India Private Limited’.
Incorporated in October 2013 at the address mentioned above, the company had, however, been struck off the ROC in August 2018—three years before the I-PAC declared its Rs 13.5 crore loan.
The ROC documents also showed that Ramsetu Infrastructure had been dissolved under Section 248 (1) of the Companies Act, 2013.
The legislation allows the Registrar to strike off companies from the list in certain cases—for companies that have failed to begin business, those that have paused/stopped business for two consecutive years or more, or those that have not fulfilled statutory requirements.
The report also added that none of the six shareholders of Ramsetu Infrastructure could recall a loan disbursed to the I-PAC, either.
January 8 raids
CM Banerjee has alleged that the January 8 ED raids on Pratik Jain's office and residence were part of a political conspiracy to seize the TMC’s hard drives, internal documents, and sensitive organisational data.
The ED, however, has maintained that the raids were part of a money laundering probe into a coal pilferage scam worth crores of rupees. Jain has been included in the scope of the case due to evidence of his connection to certain hawala transactions and cash deals.
The depth of the case led to the Supreme Court intervention on January 15, which has stayed FIRs registered against ED officers, and has directed CM Banerjee's counsel to file a response in two weeks.