Calcutta HC hearing on ED's I-PAC office raid deferred as judge leaves courtroom due to crowding

Kolkata, Jan 9 (IANS) The hearing at Calcutta High Court on the high-profile case on the issue of the Enforcement Directorate (ED)’s simultaneous raid and search operations at the office of the India Political Action Committee (I-PAC) at Salt Lake and at the residence of its co-founder Pratik Jain in central Kolkata could not happen on Friday because of excessive crowd within the courtroom.

The next date of the hearing before the single-judge bench of Justice Suvra Ghosh has been scheduled for January 14.

Justice Ghosh ultimately left the courtroom as the people not related to the case stayed back in the courtroom, causing excessive crowding there.

Justice Ghosh, the court officers, and the counsel of the parties in the case made repeated appeals to those not related to the case to leave the courtroom, so the hearing in the matter could resume.

However, the non-related individuals, including counsels related to other cases and law interns, refused to honour the appeal and stayed put.

Ultimately, Justice Ghosh stepped out of the courtroom, and it was later informed that the next date of hearing in the matter has been scheduled on January 14.

The main petition in the case was from the Enforcement Directorate (ED), accusing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of misusing her constitutional position by allegedly creating hindrances to the official duties of central agency officials during raid and search operations at these two places conducted earlier in the day.

The ED had also sought a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the matter, making the Chief Minister a party in the case. It has also pleaded for an investigation into the role of senior police officials accompanying the Chief Minister while she stormed the two places during raid and search operations by the ED officials were on, and reportedly left the places after collecting some paper files and electronic documents.

There were two other counter-petitions in the matter, one by Pratik Jain himself and the other by the Trinamool Congress. In its counter-petition, the Trinamool had alleged that since I-PAC is acting as the voter-strategy agency of the party, the ED raid was intended to seize several documents related to the party's poll strategy for the 2026 Assembly polls and share the same with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).