Kolkata: Trinamool Congress on Monday moved the Calcutta High Court after the police decided to freeze three of its bank accounts. The party sought the court’s intervention to determine under whose permission and for what reason the accounts were frozen.
Trinamool lawyers sought permission to file a case before the bench of Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya. The court accepted the application, and the formal hearing may begin later this week. The three Trinamool accounts are said to hold a total of Rs 440 crore.
A few days ago, party treasurer Aroop Biswas had written to a private bank requesting that three Trinamool accounts be frozen due to a dispute over control of party funds following an internal conflict.
After the electoral debacle in the state Assembly elections, Trinamool announced an organisational reshuffle on June 5, naming former MP Subhasish Chakraborty as the new treasurer, replacing Aroop Biswas.
However, in a recent letter to the bank, Aroop claimed he was still the party’s treasurer. The Trinamool Congress has multiple accounts in the Central Plaza branch of a private bank in Kolkata. According to his official letter, transactions on those accounts were temporarily suspended, triggering uproar within the party. The leadership then issued a show-cause notice to the former minister.
In his three-page reply, Aroop Biswas raised several questions about the party’s internal transactions, claiming that while he handled bookkeeping, all financial dealings were conducted without his knowledge.
Leader of the rebel Trinamool MLAs and Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly, Ritabrata Banerjee, supported the letter, saying, “Who knows whether there is money from the cut money (illegal commission) in that account or not. I agree with Aroop Biswas. There should be an investigation.”
On June 19, around 10 rebel Trinamool MLAs requested that the Bidhannagar South Police Station freeze the bank accounts immediately.
Following this, an investigation was launched, and three accounts were frozen. The Trinamool Congress, led by Mamata Banerjee, approached the High Court on Monday in this regard.
(IANS)
