Calcutta High Court: In a case related hearing a plea filed by TMC leader and MP Abhishek Banerjee against an order allowing the CBI and ED to summon him in connection to teacher recruitment scam case in the State of West Bengal, a Single bench comprising of Tirthankar Ghosh,* J., referred the matter before the Chief Justice of High Court at Calcutta to decide the preliminary objection raised by the Additional Solicitor General appearing on behalf of the ED as to determination of the present revision application by this Court.
Factual Matrix
In the instant matter, the Court vide order dated 18-05-2023, dismissed Abhishek Banerjee’s plea seeking relief from interrogation by CBI and ED in connection with teacher recruitment scam case in the State of West Bengal and allowed the CBI and ED to summon him. Abhishek Banerjee approached the Supreme Court against the order dated 18-05-2023. The Supreme Court vide order dated 28-04-2023, refused to interfere in the matter and directed Abhishek Banerjee to approach the High Court under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (CrPC). The Supreme Court further directed the Acting Chief Justice of the High Court at Calcutta to reassign the pending to some other Judge of the Calcutta High Court. Vide Assignment order dated 01-05-2023, the current writ petitions, all application filed in the writ petitions and any further application/s that may be filed including Review Application/s was assigned to Justice Amrita Sinha.
Contentions
The Additional Solicitor General appearing on behalf of the ED objected to the Court hearing and contended that the hearing regarding Teacher Recruitment Scam were reassigned to a Single bench of Justice Amrita Singh vide Assignment order dated 01-05-2023 as per the Supreme Court’s order dated 28-04-2023.
Senior Advocate AM Singhvi appearing on behalf of Abhishek Banerjee opposed the ED’s contention and submitted that the application was preferred before a designated Court regularly exercising jurisdiction under Section 482 of the CrPC and the liberty to approach this Court for quashing of proceeding was granted to the petitioner by the Supreme Court itself. Senior Advocate AM Singhvi further contended that ED didn’t take such objections when the bail applications of co-accused Manik Bhattachrya and Sujay Krishna Bhadra were moved on 26-06-2023.
Court’s Observation and Verdict
The Court observed that Justice Amrita Sinha vide order dated 14-07-2023 had directed the CBI and ED to place on record the details of the Investigating Officers who were investigating the Teacher Recruitment Scam case.
The Court referred the present matter before the Chief Justice of the High Court at Calcutta for deciding the issue as to “whether this Court has determination to take up the present revisional application”.
[Abhishek Banerjee v. Directorate of Enforcement, 2023 SCC OnLine Cal 2107, order dated 24-07-2023]
*Judgment by Justice Tirthankar Ghosh
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Sr. Adv., Mr. Kishore Datta, Sr. Adv., Mr. Sanjay Basu, Mr. Soumen Mohanty, Mr. Ayan Poddar, Mr. Piyush Kumar Ray, Mr. Agnish Basu, Ms. Riddhi Jain, for the Petitioner;
Mr. S.V. Raju, Ld. A.S.G., Mr. Phiroze Edulji, Mr. Zoheb Hossain, Mr. Samrat Goswami, for the Enforcement Directorate;
Mr. Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, Sr. Adv., Mr. Firdous Samim, Ms. Gopa Biswas, Ms. Payel Shome, Ms. Sampriti Saha, for Soumen Nandy (Writ Petitioner).
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