The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear on May 26, a petition filed by Trinamool Congress leader and MP Abhishek Banerjee, challenging the Calcutta High Court order of April 13, which gave liberty to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to interrogate him in the West Bengal school-for-job scam case.
Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi mentioned the matter before the Vacation Bench of Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Sanjay Karol.
As per Singhvi, the national agency had called Banerjee, while he was campaigning outside the state. He said the AITC leader was in Darjeeling and they were asking him to be questioned.
The Senior Advocate said that Banerjee was ready to appear before the national agencies on any given date this week. He further said that he was also appealing against the costs imposed on the AITC leader.
The Bench then listed the matter for hearing on Friday.
Earlier on April 13, the Single-Judge Bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay at the Calcutta High Court had directed both the CBI and the ED to probe the charges against Banerjee in the school jobs-for-cash scam.
The High Court had passed the order on a petition filed by the ED seeking protection from action by State Police against its officers as one of the accused in the case, Kuntal Ghosh, had made some allegations against the ED officers.
Ghosh had alleged that sleuths from ED were subjecting him to torture and forcing him to implicate Banerjee in the case.
Both Banerjee’s and Ghosh’s applications seeking to recall the order passed by Justice Gangopadhyay were dismissed by Justice Amrita Sinha on May 18.
She further imposed costs of Rs 25 lakh each on both of them, besides rebuking the CBI and the ED for slow pace in investigations.