Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Jan 14: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Thursday after the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday dismissed the tit-for-tat petitions filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and West Bengal’s ruling party Trinamool Congress in connection with the raids on the party’s election consultancy firm I-PAC.
The Supreme Court will hear the petition filed by the ED for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the alleged obstruction of its raids at the offices of political consultancy firm I-PAC and its co-founder Pratik Jain in Kolkata by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, State officials and other individuals.
The petition is listed before a Bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Vipul M. Pancholi. The ED has arraigned the State of West Bengal, Ms Banerjee, the State’s Director General of Police, the Kolkata Police Commissioner and the Deputy Commissioner of Police South Kolkata along with the CBI. The State has already filed a caveat in the case to forestall the passing of any order by the apex court without hearing it.
The ED had gone to the High Court, alleging that Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had walked out with a laptop, phone and multiple documents from the house of Pratik Jain, the chief of I-PAC and their offices, during raids by the Enforcement Directorate. The Trinamool Congress filed a counter-petition, alleging that the central agency has seized documents on the party’s strategy and ideology, a claim refuted by the ED.
“The ED is bullying. They have stormed. They have searched,” the TMC Counsel Menaka Guruswamy told the single-judge bench of Justice Suvra Ghosh on Wednesday to which the ED counsel SV Raju said, “No need for drama.” “We are not on caveat. We are not party in the SC case… In this matter, I want to make three points. One — we are not party in the Supreme Court. Two — data belonging to a political party was searched. We want our political data saved. Political data forms political ideology. Political jurisprudence is under question today. Three — We respectfully request our political data be returned,” Guruswamy said.
The agency requested the court to adjourn the matter because of the petition in the top court. “I’m not running away. Let the Supreme Court hear the matter. There are judgments that states the Supreme Court should hear first. That’s the judicial decorum… Heavens will not fall in one week,” said Raju. The ED had reached the Supreme Court on January 10 — a day after the Calcutta High Court adjourned the hearing of its petition citing chaos in the courtroom.
The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday disposed of the TMC’s petition praying for protection of its data, saying the ED has informed that it has not seized anything from I-PAC director Pratik Jain’s office and home during its raids last week.
The TMC had moved the court seeking an order for preservation of personal and political data that may have been seized by the ED during its raids on these two premises on January 8, 2026. Representing the ED, additional solicitor general S.V. Raju stated before the court that the agency has not seized anything from these two premises.
Disposing of the TMC’s petition, Justice Suvra Ghosh observed that in view of the submissions made by the ED and the Union of India, nothing further remains to be dealt with in the present petition by the ruling party in West Bengal.
Justice Ghosh also adjourned the petition by the ED seeking a CBI probe into the events of January 8, 2026, when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had gone to the political consultancy firm’s office at Salt Lake and its director’s residence on Loudon Street in south Kolkata during the raids. The high court adjourned the central agency’s petition on the ground that the ED has filed a special leave petition before the Supreme Court with prayers “which are almost identical with the present application before it.”
In its petition to the top court, the ED has alleged that West Bengal chief minister entered the raid locations on January 8 and took away key evidence, physical documents and electronic devices from the premises in the presence of senior state officials. The probe agency narrated the sequence of events and called the entire matter a “showdown” due to the Bengal government’s actions.
The ED has sought a CBI investigation against the Chief Minister, the Kolkata police chief and another senior police officer in its petition. The ED has also prayed to the top court to scrap the four First Information Reports filed by the state police against its officers for theft, trespassing and criminal intimidation.
The anti-money laundering agency argued that the intervention of the Chief Minister had upset a lawful investigation into coal smuggling. Vital evidence, both physical and electronic, connected to the probe was removed and the raids bulldozed, amounting to a “gross obstruction of justice.” The sites of the raids descended into scenes of a “showdown” through the illegal intervention of the State machinery, the ED has submitted in its petition before the apex court.
The ED said that the raid was connected to a probe into a coal smuggling syndicate and entities linked to hawala money, and was conducted strictly in accordance with established legal safeguards.