Kolkata, April 14 The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday issued notice to Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) co-founder Pratik Jain’s brother, Pulkit Jain, and wife, Barbie Jain, for interrogation at the agency’s headquarters in New Delhi in connection with its ongoing investigation into the multi-crore coal smuggling scams in West Bengal and Jharkhand.
The notices to Pulkit Jain and Barbie Jain were issued just a day after ED officials arrested another I-PAC co-founder, Vinesh Chandel, on Monday night in connection with the coal smuggling case.
Both have been asked to attend ED headquarters in New Delhi on April 15.
On Monday night, the ED raided Chandel’s Delhi address and arrested him. On Tuesday morning, Delhi’s Patiala House Court’s Additional Sessions Judge ordered his ED custody.
The ED told the court that Chandel, a co-founder of I-PAC, is a 33 per cent shareholder in the company, which has acted as the vote-strategy agency of Trinamool Congress since 2020.
On Monday night, Trinamool Congress’s general secretary and Lok Sabha member expressed objections to the arrest, saying that the action by the ED, barely 10 days before the crucial two-phase West Bengal assembly elections later this month, was alarming and shook the very idea of a level playing field.
To recall, on January 8 this year, ED officials conducted raids and searches at I-PAC’s Salt Lake office in the northern outskirts of Kolkata as well as at Pratik Jain’s residence at Loudon Street in Central Kolkata.
While the raid and search operations were on at both places that day, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, accompanied by top bureaucrats and police officers, stormed in and left with several papers and electronic documents, including Jain’s mobile phone.
The ED approached the Supreme Court, alleging that their officers obstructed the investigation process. The petition was supposed to be heard in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, but the court announced that it will be postponed indefinitely.
--IANS
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