The Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred to February 10 the hearing on a petition filed by the ED against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and some state police officers for 'obstructing' its search of the office of I-PAC, the political consultant of the All India Trinamool Congress, in connection with an alleged coal pilferage scam.
The bench deferred the matter after allowing the plea of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the ED, seeking more time after the state government filed affidavits in the matter.
The matter was heard by a bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and NV Anjaria.
The West Bengal government on Monday filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court and said the ED's plea over the I-PAC raid is not maintainable.
The TMC-led state government said that as a similar matter was pending before the Calcutta High Court, there cannot be "parallel proceedings” before two constitutional courts.
"The central agency did not have fundamental rights to file a writ petition before the apex court. The ED did not have the power to conduct omnibus search and seizure and the agency had violated privileged communications," said the affidavit filed before the apex court by the West Bengal government.
On January 15, the Supreme Court had stayed the cases registered by the state government against some ED officials over allegations of theft during the central agency's raids at the premises of political consultancy firm I-PAC.
After hearing the petition filed by the ED, the apex court said there would be lawlessness in the country if it did not examine the issues raised by the agency. It issued a notice to CM Mamata Banerjee and others, seeking their replies on the ED's petition.
The top court also issued notices to the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Department of Personnel & Training, Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress government in Bengal on the ED's plea seeking the suspension of Bengal's DGP Rajeev Kumar and Kolkata Police Commissioner Manoj Kumar Verma, among others.
The apex court directed the preservation of CCTV footage of the premises searched on January 8.
In a plea filed in the Supreme Court, the ED sought the suspension of top officials of the West Bengal police, including DGP Kumar, alleging that they aided CM Mamata in the obstruction of the investigation and theft of evidence.
In a different plea, the ED alleged that CM Mamata's presence at the search site and the alleged removal of documents had an intimidating effect on its officers and seriously compromised the agency's ability to discharge its statutory functions independently.
The central probe agency sought the court's directions for an independent inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), contending that a neutral central agency is necessary in view of the alleged interference by the state executive.
West Bengal witnessed an unprecedented clash between CM Mamata and the ED on January 8 when the TMC supremo arrived with a large group of police officers at the residence of the I-PAC chief as the raids were going on.
Mamata alleged that the central agency was attempting to seize hard disks and internal documents containing the TMC's sensitive organisational data. She called the raids "politically motivated and unconstitutional."