The Calcutta High Court on Thursday granted Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee interim protection from arrest in the signature forgery case.

Justice Kaushik Chandra directed Abhishek to cooperate with the ongoing probe by the Central Investigation Department(CID) and said that no coercive action can be taken against the MP for three weeks.

The CID had sent multiple summons to Abhishek for questioning, but he has not turned up yet. The court directed him to appear before the investigators on Thursday at 6 pm after landing from Delhi.

Abhishek’s advocate, Kalyan Banerjee, approached the high court for an urgent hearing after a CID team conducted searches at the MP's office on Tuesday when he, along with TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, was away in Delhi to attend an INDIA bloc meeting. 

Searches were carried out at Abhishek’s office on Camac Street and simultaneously at the TMC office located opposite Mamata’s residence in Kalighat.

The CID team arrived at the party office in Kalighat on Tuesday afternoon and conducted a search for documents linked to the alleged signature forgery case. After spending nearly an hour at the premises, officials left with several documents.

The case pertains to a complaint lodged by West Bengal Assembly Speaker Ratindra Bose at Hare Street police station, alleging that a forged document was produced before him in connection with the appointment of the Leader of the Opposition.

Earlier, two TMC MLAs—Ritabrata Banerjee and Sandipan Saha—had complained to the Speaker that the signatures of at least 14 of the 70 MLAs in the party's letter were forged.

Investigators have questioned the 14 MLAs whose signatures appeared to be forged. As Abhishek’s signature allegedly appeared at the bottom of the document, the CID issued him a summons to record his statement.

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