NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a petition by Mamata Banerjee-headed TMC faction seeking de-freezing of its three bank accounts on grounds that the party required funds to carry out political activities, such as holding rallies and meetings.Challenging Calcutta HC’s order allowing only meeting of day-to-day expenses of the party from these accounts, senior advocate A M Singhvi said the party’s three Indian Bank accounts, which have been given a clean chit by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a separate proceeding, should be allowed to be operated by the party.Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for West Bengal govt, told a bench of Justices M M Sundresh and P B Varale that the accounts in question are frozen based on the FIR lodged by the state police, as there is evidence that Rs 35 crore, generated from the fraudulent sale of government land after it was misrepresented as private land by Abhishek Banerjee’s PS Sumit Roy, was deposited in these bank accounts.Mehta also mentioned there is a plea pending before the EC as to which is the real TMC, the faction headed by Mamata or the rival group, adding that the EC has frozen the party symbol and allotted both factions ad hoc symbols to contest bypolls.
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The bench said it would not examine merits of the case as it is l pending with HC, which in the interim has already rejected the plea for de-freezing the accounts. It requested the HC to expedite adjudication of the pending petition on the issue.In its petition, the Mamata faction said it urgently required funds to meet expenses that would arise from preparations for the bypolls.Referring to an earlier ED proceeding freezing its three HDFC bank accounts, TMC said, “The FIR does not pertain to its Indian Bank accounts as no transaction is linked to the four bank accounts to the alleged offence.Successive and progressive freezing of TMC’s bank accounts indicates mala fide use of power by state authorities to paralyse operations of a nationally recognised party.”