NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to interfere with the Calcutta high court’s order which refused to grant relief to the Trinamool Congress by permitting it to operate the three bank accounts frozen by the Enforcement Directorate.A bench of Justices MM Sunderesh and Prasanna B Varale, however, granted liberty to the TMC to file its objections before the special officer within a fortnight.Earlier, the top court had asked the central probing agency whether some amount could be released from the frozen bank accounts of the Mamata Banerjee-led faction of the TMC in favour of a court-appointed special officer to meet the day-to-day expenses of the party.This comes as the ED froze three bank accounts of the TMC, with balances totalling Rs 440.42 crore, in connection with its money laundering probe arising out of an FIR lodged by the West Bengal Police over alleged dishonest financial transactions, unlawful collection of money and routing of suspected funds through certain party accounts.Earlier, the high court had refused interim relief to the Mamata-led faction.In its order, the high court had noted that other than the three accounts under “debit-freeze” by the ED, there were 36 other accounts in the party’s name and an amount of Rs 164 crore was lying there.According to officials, the ED’s preliminary investigation found that around Rs 160 crore was transferred from the TMC’s bank accounts to Carewell Aviation India Pvt Ltd and its related entity between April 2023 and June 2026.
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The company is alleged to have further routed Rs 82.96 crore (between 2023 and 2026) to another newly incorporated entity.It was claimed that a “significant” amount was transferred to this entity. Out of this, Rs 112 crore was used for purchasing an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet and an AgustaWestland 109SP helicopter, the officials had said.
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