Ministers seek recall of HC order on assets

Declarations filed by 19 legislators before EC in the run up to the 2016 Assembly polls showed that their wealth had multiplied by many counts from what they had in 2011

Calcutta High Court.: File photo

Tapas Ghosh   |   TT  |  13.08.22 : Three Bengal ministers, Firhad Hakim, Jyotipriya Mullick and Arup Roy, on Friday moved a petition before a division bench of Calcutta High Court, seeking the recall of its order that had asked a petitioner to make the Enforcement Directorate (ED) a party in his PIL that had accused 19 Trinamul Congress legislators, including the trio, of amassing huge wealth between 2011 and 2016.While acting upon two 2017 petitions, one filed by Biplab Roy Chowdhury and the other by Arijit Ganguly, the division bench headed by Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava had on August 8 asked the petitioner to make the ED a party in the case.

The order came after minister Partha Chatterjee had been arrested in connection with alleged recruitment scam.One of the petitioners had claimed that declarations filed by 19 legislators of the ruling Trinamul before the Election Commission of India in the run up to the 2016 Assembly polls showed that their wealth had multiplied by many counts from what they had in 2011.While praying for recalling the order for including the ED in the case, the three ministers raised following points: 

1) Order for the inclusion of the ED in the case was made on the basis of an oral prayer by the counsel appearing for the petitioner and there was no written prayer.

2) Applicants (three ministers) were not given an opportunity to oppose the PIL.

3) The Election Commission or the income tax department found no ground to proceed against the applicants on the basis of the declarations they had filed (along with the nomination papers in the 2016 Assembly polls).

4) No trial or inquiry is pending before any competent forum by way of criminal complaint on the allegation made in the writ petition.

A source said the application submitted by the ministers would come up for scrutiny when the PIL was expected to be heard on September 12, along with another petition that accused 30 leaders of Opposition parties of having wealth disproportionate to their known sources of income during the 2011-2016 period.