Justice Amrita Sinha of Calcutta High Court on Monday expressed her displeasure at the way the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has been investigating the finances of Leaps and Bounds, a company whose CEO is said to be Trinamul Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.
The central agencies suspect the company is linked to the alleged irregularities in recruitments for government-aided schools.
Justice Sinha expressed the doubt whether the ED investigators were “trained enough” to conduct the probe.
The judge named Abhishek Banerjee while expressing her displeasure as the name of the proprietor of 188C Harish Mukherjee Road, a building named Shantiniketan where Banerjee lives, was not on the list of the properties he has submitted to the ED.
“The CEO (Banerjee) in a letter to the ED has stated about his three LIC policies only. Do you think it is true?” the judge asked.
ED assistant director Mithilesh Mishra, who was present in the court, said: “Till date we have only these documents.”
At this, Justice Sinha scolded the ED officer and compared the central agency to a post office where people drop letters.
“Is your agency a post office where people would drop the list of their properties? What did you do to find out the proprietor of 188C Harish Mukherjee Road?” the judgeasked.
Justice Sinha further asked whether the central agency had done anything to find out the nature of the business that was being conducted by Leaps and Bounds.
“The company had stated that it was running a water factory and submitted a photograph in which a lot of bottles were seen. (But) Did your officers find out by yourselves what type of business this company has?” the judge asked.
Raising questions on the efficiency of the central agency, Justice Sinha then asked if the ED needed more officers or the assistance of the “financial intelligence” (unit). Misha answered in the affirmative.
The judge in her order also mentioned that the ED had yet to find out about Lata Banerjee, in whose name the Leaps and Bounds company was registered. “I want details about the functioning of the company, its transactions since inception in 2012 and also about the details of the assets of the employees,” she said.
The judge also asked the ED to inform the court about the detailed earnings of the company between 2012 and 2016, when Sujay Kumar Bhadra, who was arrested by the ED earlier, was a director of the company.
Dhiraj Trivedi, the lawyer who appeared virtually for the ED, filed a prayer seeking time for taking instructions from the ED director and requested the judge to schedule the matter for hearing for Wednesday.
The judge accepted the prayer and fixed the case for hearing again on Wednesday. Ashwin Shenvi, the CBI deputy inspector-general who is leading the special investigation team that is probing the alleged irregularities in recruitments, attended Monday’s proceedings virtually.
Replying to a query by the judge, Shenvi said theCBI took the assistance of financial intelligence when needed.
The case related to properties of Leaps and Bound executives was primarily scheduled for hearing by Justice Sinha on October 10.
However, on Monday morning the judge said that while verifying the report submitted, some “questions have come up in my mind” and the court wanted the investigators from the CBI and the ED to be present in court at 4.15pm on Monday.
During the hearing, the judge also expressed surprise over the ED’s claims that tlll date, actor Bonny Sengupta was the lone member of the city’s film industry who has been identified as having had financial transactions with Leaps and Bounds.