ED to quiz West Bengal CM Mamata's nephew, Kolkata police summon probe officers

Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, before leaving for New Delhi on Sunday to attend an Enforcement Directorate (ED) summons over questioning in the illegal coal mining case, vowed to “fight till the very end”. Coincidently, Kolkata Police has issued summons to three ED officers, who are probing the same case, based on a complaint lodged by Banerjee last April.

Banerjee said he had received an e-mail from the central agency, asking him to appear before it on Monday. According to the summons issued by the Kolkata Police, the ED officers are to report at the Kalighat police station by 12pm on Monday.

“I will not bow down. I will not be cowed. We will not surrender, nor will we sell our spine. We will see this fight to the end, however long it takes,” Banerjee said, before taking a flight to Delhi. He added that he had eye surgery only four days back and had been advised bed rest. “But I am still going,” he said.


He said he had appealed in the Delhi high court against this in August 2021. “It was heard till November. Then the judgment was reserved for three months. On March 10, BJP won polls in four of the five states. On March 11, my appeal was dismissed. While I have complete faith in the judiciary, this can’t be a coincidence. I can appeal in the apex court.”

Linking the summons to BJP’s dismal performance in the 2021 Bengal polls, he said: “Bengal will not bow its head. If I must bow, I will do it a hundred times before the people, not before them (the BJP government at the Centre).”

Legal consultations were on regarding an ED summons to Banerjee’s wife Rujira.

The agency’s summons to Banerjee and the police summons to the three ED officers are linked to the multi-crore illegal coal-mining allegations that surfaced in 2020 after the government-owned Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL) filed a complaint.

Kolkata Police’s summons to the three ED officers for questioning is related to an FIR lodged by Banerjee last April.

The illegal coal-mining scam, which surfaced in poll-bound Bengal, is now being probed by CBI and ED. The case has been mired in multiple court battles, in which the legality of a CBI probe, after Bengal withdrew its consent for CBI probes, has also been questioned by the Bengal government.

Tentatively pegged to be around Rs 2,000 crore, the FIRs implicated several people, alleging they were close to the Trinamool. Banerjee has consistently dismissed allegations and has questioned the central agencies’ intent behind the probes. “It’s a two-year-old case, but I will repeat what I had said at a public rally in 2020 regarding this issue: if any agency can prove I had misappropriated funds of even 10 paise, there would be no need of any CBI or ED to investigate — I will embrace death in public.”