KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court on Monday directed the petitioner of a PIL claiming an exponential increase in the assets of some West Bengal ministers and ruling Trinamool Congress leaders to make the Enforcement Directorate (ED) a party in the matter.
The PIL was filed in February 2017 seeking an investigation into the increase in their assets.
On a prayer by the petitioner's lawyer Shamim Ahmed, a division bench presided over by Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava directed him to make the ED a party in the PIL, in which the CBI and the Income Tax department, apart from the leaders are respondents.
The petitioner sought an investigation into the alleged exponential increase in assets disproportionate to known sources of income of the ministers and leaders between 2011 and 2016.
The matter will be taken up for hearing again on September 14, the bench, also comprising Justice R Bharadwaj, said.
The ED last month arrested a senior West Bengal minister in connection with an alleged scam related to the recruitment of teachers and non-teaching staff in government-sponsored and -aided schools.