The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to allow the Mamata Banerjee-led faction of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) to operate four debit-frozen bank accounts containing around ₹804 crore, and asked the Calcutta High Court to expedite the hearing on the matter.
A bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and P.B. Varale refused to interfere with the Calcutta High Court’s August 27 order, which had denied the TMC faction’s request for interim access to the four accounts. The Supreme Court observed that the Election Commission has frozen the party symbol and that the larger question of which faction is entitled to the funds remains pending adjudication.
The bench said, “The entitlement to funds in bank accounts cannot be decided when the symbol dispute is pending before the Election Commission.” It further stated, “We refrain from going into the merits. We are not inclined to exercise our jurisdiction under Article 136. We request high court to expedite the hearing.”
The four accounts, held with public sector banks, were debit-frozen by the West Bengal Police. The Mamata faction had approached the Calcutta High Court seeking permission to operate them, arguing that there were procedural shortcomings in the FIRs linked to the freezing of the accounts.
Appearing for the Mamata-led faction, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi argued that the freezing of the accounts had severely affected the party’s functioning. “If the police force of a state where the ruling party is opposed to me… send the police and they freeze all accounts, that's the best way of stopping political activities,” Singhvi told the Supreme Court.
The Calcutta High Court had on August 27 declined to grant interim relief, noting that the party had already been permitted to meet its day-to-day expenses through an earlier arrangement. The High Court had appointed a special officer to oversee such expenses from three other debit-frozen accounts.
The Supreme Court’s order leaves the dispute over the four accounts unresolved for now, with the larger question of control over the party’s funds linked to the ongoing dispute over the TMC’s organisational identity and election symbol before the Election Commission.
Separately, the Enforcement Directorate has frozen ₹440 crore in three TMC accounts with HDFC Bank as part of its investigation into alleged laundering of party funds through Kolkata-based Carewell Aviation. The agency has alleged that party funds were used in transactions involving an Embraer Legacy 600 aircraft and an Agusta helicopter; these allegations remain under investigation.
