The Supreme Court on Thursday (January 15, 2026) froze the Calcutta Police’s investigation against Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials who conducted searches at the I-PAC office and the residence of its co-founder Pratik Jain on January 8.
The police investigation was based on allegations that sensitive election records of the ruling Trinamool Congress party, which consults I-PAC on electoral and political strategy, were “stolen” by officials of the central agency during the raids. Complaints were lodged against the ED at Shakespeare Sarani Police Station and Bidhannagar Electronic Complex Police Station.
A bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Vipul M. Pancholi issued formal notices to the respondents, including the state government, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the state’s Director General of Police, the Kolkata Police Commissioner and the South Kolkata Deputy Commissioner of Police. The ED has filed a case against them with the Central Bureau of Investigation for disrupting its statutory raids and thus obstructing the investigation into the ₹2,742 crore coal smuggling case.
In its order, the bench said the case raises “serious” issues regarding the scope of investigations conducted by central agencies like the ED and interventions by state agencies.
“In our opinion, in order to uphold the rule of law in the country and to ensure the independent functioning of each body, it is necessary to examine this issue in such a way that criminals cannot be protected under the shield of law enforcement agencies of a particular state… These are more extensive issues. If they are not decided, the situation may worsen and a situation of lawlessness may prevail in one or the other state in which different states rule, considering that in individual states ruling in different states, Benecko reigns.”
The court said that it was true that the central authorities had no power to interfere in the election work of the party, but if one of them was acting bonafide, the state authorities in return could not obstruct its investigation under the guise of “party activities”.
The court ordered the state police to preserve the January 8 CCTV footage at the raid sites and neighboring areas. The court gave the respondents, which include the CBI, two weeks to file their replies. She scheduled the next hearing of the case for February 3.
In the hearing, the ED accused Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of the “criminal offense of theft” with senior police officers acting as her “accomplices”.
“She went on a lawful raid and took evidence, including the mobile phone of an ED officer. The Chief Minister then goes to the media to loudly announce what she has done,” said Solicitor General Tushar Mehta along with Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, who appeared for the ED.
The ED has called for the suspension of the police officers involved. “The cops were supposed to be assisting the ED in its investigation into allegations of money laundering linked to profits from illegally mined coal. Instead, the cops came to help Mr. Minister remove evidence,” Mehta said.
He said the ultimate objective of the ED investigation was to find the misappropriated proceeds of crime and return them to the victims of the crime.
Mr Raju said a CBI inquiry was necessary as the Chief Minister was also the Home Minister of the state and the incident involved top police officers of West Bengal. The investigation should be shifted outside West Bengal in the interest of justice.
Mr Mehta said “mobocracy has replaced democracy” in the state, referring to how a mob stormed the Calcutta High Court, shouting slogans and disrupting the January 9 hearing of an ED petition seeking a CBI probe into the matter.
“Like it’s Jantar Mantar, isn’t it?” Justice Mishra thought.
Mr. Mehta claimed that an examination of the WhatsApp messages revealed that the disruption in the court was planned by the legal wing of the ruling party of the state. Mr. Raju claimed that his microphone was constantly muted during the subsequent hearing of the case in the High Court.
Countering the ED raid, senior advocates Kapil Sibal and AM Singhvi said the ED raids were malafide and were intended to “disrupt the election process”.
Mr. Sibal said the last time the ED took up a coal smuggling case was in early 2024. He questioned why the ED waited two long years and months before the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections to raid the premises of the I-PAC, which was party to a consultation agreement with the TMC, considered a political rival of the ruling power at the Centre.
“It is a complete lie that the Chief Minister took evidence. The ED tampered with the election process by going to a place where confidential materials were kept under contract,” Mr. Sibal alleged.
He said the ED had prior knowledge that there would be “a lot of information about the party (TMC). So why did the ED go there in the middle of an election?” he asked.
Published – 15 Jan 2026 13:19 IST
