In West Bengal, the sword of Enforcement Directorate (ED) hangs over more than two dozen MLAs and ministers of Mamata Banerjee. Apart from this, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Shubhendu Adhikari has said that he is going to give a list of 99 such MLAs to the ED, who have assets disproportionate to their known sources of income. These 25 people are also included in those 99 people. These 25 people are hanging the sword because of the Calcutta High Court. Therefore, a PIL to probe the alleged unaccounted assets of these leaders is pending since 2017. This petition has been filed by Biplab Dev Choudhary. Recently, state government minister Partha Chatterjee was raided, cash was found and he was arrested, then Biplab Chaudhary again reached the High Court.
While hearing this case, the High Court has also made the ED a party in it. Against this decision of the High Court, three ministers of the state government – Firhad Hakim, Jyotipriya Malik and Arup Roy have reached the court. He has said that the ED should not be involved in this case as the Election Commission and Income Tax Department have not got any unaccounted property from him. However, from the stand of the court, it seems that the ED will be a party in this and the court will give its investigation to the ED. Those whose assets are to be investigated include Firhad Hakim, Jyotipriya Malik, Malay Ghatak, Bratyavrata Basu etc. The name of BJP MP Arjun Singh is also included in this. He has recently returned to the Trinamool Congress. The names of big leaders like Gautam Deb, Amit Mitra, Abdur Razak Mollah, Madan Mitra are included in this. The interrogation of other MPs and leaders is going on, that is different.
