New Delhi, April 2026 : The Supreme Court is set to hear a crucial plea filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday, in connection with alleged interference during a raid at the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The case stems from an Enforcement Directorate search operation conducted on January 8 as part of a multi-crore money laundering investigation linked to an alleged coal smuggling scam. According to the central agency, the situation escalated when the Chief Minister, accompanied by a large contingent of police personnel and senior officials, entered the I-PAC office and the residence of its founder, Pratik Jain, while the searches were still underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ED has alleged that during this intervention, crucial evidence \u2014 including laptops, mobile phones, and sensitive documents containing electoral data \u2014 was removed without authorisation. The agency maintains that such actions, if proven, amount to obstruction of a lawful investigation by a constitutional authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During earlier hearings, the Supreme Court had expressed concern over the incident, describing the situation as \u201cvery unusual\u201d and \u201cunhappy.\u201d The bench had also flagged the absence of clear legal remedies in instances where high-ranking state officials are accused of interfering in central agency operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Representing the ED, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta has urged the court to order a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the alleged obstruction. He has further sought appropriate action against the Chief Minister and the state\u2019s Director General of Police, arguing that central agencies must not be left \u201cremediless\u201d when their investigations face physical or administrative hindrance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other side, the West Bengal government has strongly contested the plea. Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the state, have questioned the maintainability of the petition. They argued that the ED, as a government body, cannot invoke Article 32 or claim fundamental rights to directly approach the Supreme Court in this matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The state government has also alleged that the raids were politically motivated, aimed at targeting the ruling All India Trinamool Congress ahead of the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a related development, I-PAC co-founder Vinesh Kumar Chandel was arrested on April 13 in connection with the same money laundering probe. A Delhi court later remanded him to 10 days of ED custody for further interrogation, with his custody extending until April 23. Following his arrest, I-PAC is reported to have scaled down its operations in West Bengal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Supreme Court\u2019s hearing is expected to play a significant role in determining the legal contours of the case, particularly concerning the powers of central investigative agencies and the accountability of public officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi, April 2026 : The Supreme Court is set to hear a crucial plea filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday, in connection with alleged interference during a raid at the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC). The case stems from an Enforcement Directorate search operation conducted …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":102235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[143],"post_format":[],"flags":[],"class_list":["post-116436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state","tag-state"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116437,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116436\/revisions\/116437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/102235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116436"},{"taxonomy":"post_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fpost_format&post=116436"},{"taxonomy":"flags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fflags&post=116436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}