The day-long drama over the arrest of Trinamul Congress leader Jyotipriya Mullick reached its climax in a court room on Friday when the minister, formerly in charge of the state food and supplies department, threw up and collapsed in the dock even as the judge remanded him to Enforcement Directorate custody for 10 days.

Mullick, who was state food and supplies minister for a decade from 2011 to 2021, was arrested by the agency in the wee hours of Friday after a marathon search and grilling session that lasted for around 20 hours at his Salt Lake properties on charges of masterminding the ration distribution scam in the state which, according to some estimates, runs into over Rs 1,000 crore.

The BJP has already labeled Mullick, now the minister for forests, as the “kingpin” of the scam which essentially entailed theft of government-procured food grains meant for distribution to citizens through fair price ration shops and selling them off in open markets at premium rates.

On Friday, after his health deteriorated in the court room of special vacation Judge Tanumay Karmakar at the Bankshall Court in central Calcutta, Mullick was initially removed to the judge’s air conditioned chamber for preliminary medical attention and later carried out on a stretcher onto a waiting ambulance and moved to Apollo Hospitals adjacent to the EM Bypass.

West Bengal minister Jyotipriya Mallick being arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and security officials after conducting rigorous search at his residence at Salt Lake area.

The minister was accompanied to the hospital in the ambulance by his wife Monideepa and daughter Priyadarshini even as an ED officer occupied the co-driver’s seat of the ambulance.

A diabetes patient, Mullick would be examined by his own doctors at the private hospital, the court directed, and could be transferred to the Eastern Command hospital for admission, if the situation warranted. The court also directed the hospital to set up a medical board of doctors to oversee his treatment. Slightly modifying its initial order of remand till November 6 in the wake of the developing health issues of the accused minister, the court directed that Mullick’s remand period would begin after his release from hospital, in the eventuality of him needing admission.

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During his remand period, Mullick would have access to home-cooked food delivered to him by his daughter and would be able to meet his lawyers for an hour each day, the court directed. Till information last received, the minister was undergoing an MRI examination at the private hospital and was likely to be advised admission in the critical care unit.

Meanwhile, the ED confirmed having taken steps to freeze bank accounts of both Mullick as well as his wife and daughter and confiscated the minister’s mobile phones for forensic examination while looking into the possibility of unearthing additional bank accounts of the accused and his family.

In its submission before the court while seeking remand, the ED claimed that it has so far amassed evidence that Mullick laundered ill-gotten money as proceeds of the corruption by operating three shell companies, namely Shree Hanuman Realcom Private Limited, Gracious Innovative Private Limited and Gracious Creation Private Limited which were directly acquired by the minister and in which his wife and daughter remained as directors. These bogus companies, the agency claimed in court, were used to redirect funds and turn black money into legitimate wealth.

The probe so far, according to the ED, has established that the companies also provided large amounts of loans to Mullick which were never repaid. Most of the claims made by the agency in court on Friday were on the basis of confessional statements extracted from Bakibur Rahaman, a close associate of the minister who is believed to be a crucial cog in the scam wheel, and is currently in agency custody for the past two weeks.

The agency further claimed that during raids and searches at the residence of one of Mallick’s close aides, Abhijit Das, in Howrah it was able to seize a "maroon diary" labeled "Baluda (the minister’s nickname)" containing transaction details related to the scam. Bank accounts opened in the names of domestic helpers at the minister’s residence were also used to park and redirect corruption money, the central agency claimed.