Kolkata, Aug 27 (IANS) The Calcutta High Court on Thursday refused any interim relief to the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress faction on the freezing of four party bank accounts in a branch of a public sector bank.
The “original but minority” faction of the Trinamool Congress, led by the former West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee and her nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, approached the High Court to seek lifting of the debit restrictions on four bank accounts of the party held at Harish Mukherjee Road Branch of the bank.
The bank authorities had imposed the debit restrictions on these four bank accounts following the instructions from the West Bengal Police.
In the plea, the Mamata Banerjee-led faction argued that lifting of debit restrictions was necessary to meet the daily expenses of the party, especially paying the salaries to 215 party whole-timers.
In the plea, this faction of the former ruling party in the state also pleaded for a stay on the case registered at the Cybercrime Police Station under the Bidhannagar City Police in North 24 Parganas district, in relation to which the state police instructed the debit restrictions.
The matter came up for hearing on Thursday before the bench of Justice Saugata Bhattacharya, and he refused to give any relief in the matter.
Instead, he directed the state government to file an affidavit in the matter, to be followed by a counter-affidavit by the Mamata Banerjee-led faction.
He also observed that the matter will be heard only after the affidavit and the counter-affidavit are filed, and only then will the court take a decision in the matter.
Justice Bhattacharya also observed that although in the past, the same bench allowed a partial and conditional de-freezing of four bank accounts of the Trinamool with a private sector bank, in this case, the court would not give any instruction right at this moment.
–IANS
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