Can’t appear due to prior engagement: Abhishek to ED

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary and Diamond Harbour MP, Abhishek Banerjee sent a letter to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) expressing his inability to appear before it stating that he is preoccupied with the party’s Nabajowar campaign and Panchayat poll-related party works.

He was summoned on Tuesday by the ED after the agency had summoned his wife Rujira Narula Banerjee in connection with the coal smuggling case. However, Abhishek had made it clear that he will not go to the ED office on Tuesday since he is presently engaged with the party’s Nabajowar campaign and since the dates for Panchayat polls have already been announced, he will remain preoccupied with poll-related work.

Abhishek, on Tuesday, sent a letter to the ED, written on his MP letterhead, and was addressed to Mithilesh Kumar Mishra, Assistant Director, Directorate of Enforcement, Union Ministry of Finance.

He wrote: “I am unable to appreciate the scope and purport of the summon under reference in as much as you have sought information/documents which do not have any connection with the public speech delivered by me on 29.03.2023 and therefore, are beyond the scope of the directions passed by the Hon’ble Court in the aforesaid matter.”

“At present, I am not in Kolkata and travelling as part of a State-wide yatra to connect with the people of West Bengal. Further, since the panchayat elections for the State of West Bengal have been declared to be held on 08.07.2023, I am engaged in preparing for the same. It is not out of place to mention that most of the information/documents sought are already available with appropriate government authorities/departments. Be that as it may, the information/documents requisitioned by your office in the summon under reference date to a decade, which are voluminous in nature and I am in the process of collating such information/documents. Having said so, I would like to seek clarification from your office pertaining to the scope and purport of your ensuing investigation pursuant to which the summon under reference has been issued upon me. I am ready and willing to extend my cooperation with your ensuing investigation within the permissible limits of the law,” the letter read.

The TMC MP was grilled by CBI officers at the Kolkata office for over nine hours on May 20 in connection with their investigation into the primary school jobs scam.