KOLKATA: The ED has written to a private bank seeking details related to transactions of funds belonging to the AITC, headed by former chief minister Mamata Banerjee, lying in different bank accounts of the party.
Sources said that the Central investigating agency was prompted to write the letter to the private bank authorities after it found several alleged irregularities involving transactions of around Rs 164 crore lying in the bank accounts of the party.
On July 8, the ED had frozen Rs 440.42 crore held in three bank accounts of the AITC as part of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) investigation into chartered flights used by a senior party leader.
Earlier, the ED had conducted searches at five locations in and around Kolkata in West Bengal, targeting a private aviation firm, its directors and an electoral trust.
The agency said the frozen funds were held in three HDFC Bank accounts.
Investigation revealed that around Rs 160 crore was transferred from AITC bank accounts to the private aviation company and its related entity, mostly between April 2023 and June 2026.
The agency further said that the company routed Rs 82.96 crore between 2023 and 2026 to another newly incorporated related entity to purchase an aircraft and an Agusta 109 Grand helicopter. A total of Rs 112 crore was used to make the purchases.
The aircraft and the helicopter were subsequently leased to the AITC, even though they had been purchased using funds from the party's corpus.
Thereafter, substantial amounts were transferred on the pretext of aircraft usage. The ED said the arrangement was under investigation to ascertain the actual purpose of the transactions.
The probe was initiated following a police complaint alleging that chartered flights used by Abhishek Banerjee, Trinamool MP and Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, and a senior party leader, were funded through improperly collected money, agency sources said.
On July 10, according to sources, the police had directed the bank authorities concerned to freeze 12 more accounts of the AITC belonging to Mamata Banerjee's faction, which has around Rs 1,000 crore lying in the 15 bank accounts, including the three frozen accounts.
This came a day after the Calcutta High Court (HC) allowed the party to use funds from its three other frozen accounts in the HDFC Bank for day-to-day administrative and legal expenses.
The three frozen accounts, worth around Rs 440 crore, were made debit-frozen on June 18 by Bidhannagar cyber police following a complaint lodged by the rebel faction led by MLAs Ritabrata Banerjee and Sandipan Saha, claiming the funds contained proceeds of the crime.
The Bidhannagar police have by this time recorded statements of the seven rebel MLAs, including Ritabrata and Sandipan, to find out why the dissident legislators claim the funds contained proceeds of the crime.
Following the ongoing probe related to the three frozen accounts, sources requesting anonymity said that the investigating police officials want to know about the transaction details in the 12 other bank accounts.
The High Court appointed Justice Subrata Talukdar, a retired judge, as a special officer to handle the banking transactions of the frozen accounts till September 30.
The special officer can release funds required for the day-to-day political activities of the Trinamool Congress faction aligned with Mamata Banerjee.
“No other expenditure, major or minor, shall be permitted,” the order said.
According to the court directive, funds can be withdrawn from the three frozen accounts against cheques signed by two approved signatories. The signed cheques must be presented before the special officer, who will verify and countersign before releasing them to the bank.
Friday's court directive can be changed if any one of the two AITC factions gets the Election Commission of India’s official recognition to claim the funds lying in the frozen accounts.
The High Court also directed the special officer to file a report on the expenditure incurred during the period on the next hearing of the case scheduled for September 21.
Cracks developed within the Trinamool Congress after it suffered a crushing defeat to the BJP in the recent assembly elections in Bengal.
The former ruling party in the state was divided into two camps – the Mamata Banerjee faction and breakaway groups of rebel MLAs led by Ritabrata Banerjee, Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly.
The national poll body sought views from the two camps against the backdrop of the split in the AITC.