New Delhi, April 23 -- The Supreme Court of India on Wednesday said that chief minister Mamata Banerjee had put "the whole democracy in jeopardy" by allegedly obstructing search operations carried out by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at the Kolkata offices of political consultancy firm I-PAC and the residence of its director Pratik Jain. In strong remarks ahead of the first phase of West Bengal polls slated for March 23, a bench of justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and NV Anjaria made it clear that the controversy went beyond a routine Centre-State dispute, framing it instead as an instance of individual conduct by a constitutional functionary with far-reaching implications. "This is not a dispute between the State and the Union. A chief minister of any state cannot walk in the midst of an investigation, put the democracy in peril.This is per se an act committed by an individual who happens to be the Chief Minister keeping the whole democracy in jeopardy," the bench observed. The court added that even constitutional thinkers like BR Ambedkar and HM Seervai would not have envisaged a situation where a sitting chief minister intervenes during an ongoing search by a central agency. "You have taken us through Seervai, Ambedkar, but none of them would have conceived this situation in this country that one day a sitting chief minister will walk into the office like this...," said the bench. The remarks came during the hearing of petitions filed by the ED and its officers under Article 32 seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged obstruction.P7...