New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to allow the Mamata Banerjee led Trinamool Congress faction to operate four debit frozen bank accounts holding around rs 804 crore, leaving the funds inaccessible for now and sending the larger dispute back to the Calcutta High Court for an expedited hearing.
A bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and P.B. Varale declined to interfere with the Calcutta High Court’s August 27 order, which had rejected the faction’s request for interim access to the four accounts. The Supreme Court made it clear that it was not examining the merits of the underlying dispute.
“We refrain from going into the merits,” the bench said, while asking the High Court to speed up the proceedings. The court also noted that the Election Commission’s action concerning the party’s name and symbol means that the larger question of which faction is entitled to the funds remains unresolved.
The four accounts, maintained with Indian Bank, were debit frozen following action by the West Bengal Police in connection with a cybercrime complaint. The TMC faction had challenged the freezing and argued that deficiencies in the FIRs justified allowing the accounts to be operated.
During the proceedings, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the Mamata led faction, argued that the freezing had severely affected the party’s functioning and submitted that the organisation required substantial funds for its regular operations.
The state, however, opposed the plea. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta referred to an allegation that a personal assistant linked to a party office bearer had deposited rs 35 crore in cash into an account. The allegation is part of an ongoing investigation and has not been adjudicated on merits by the Supreme Court.
The present dispute follows an earlier round of litigation involving three other frozen TMC accounts. In July, the Calcutta High Court appointed a Special Officer to oversee access to funds from those accounts for the party’s day to day and legal expenses. The arrangement was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court.
The Calcutta High Court had declined to extend similar interim access to the four Indian Bank accounts, holding that such relief could undermine the existing arrangement for meeting the party’s routine expenses.
For now, the rs 804 crore remains locked, while the competing claims over control of the party and entitlement to its funds continue before the courts and the Election Commission.
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