Kolkata, March 7 -- The Supreme Court, on Thursday, is learned to have refused to entertain a plea by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) that challenged the Calcutta High Court order which had prescribed guidelines for probe agencies relating to disclosure of information to the media or public, before filing a chargesheet, pertaining to cases involving Rujira Banerjee, wife of Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Abhishek Banerjee.
It was learnt that a bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and Prashant Kumar Mishra told Additional Solicitor General (ASG) S V Raju, appearing on behalf of the ED, that since the plea is against an interim order of the High Court, the apex court is not inclined to entertain it. The bench told the ASG that the court would either dismiss the ED's plea or the agency can withdraw it. Following this, the ASG agreed to withdraw it and it was allowed by the court.
The Calcutta High Court order in October 2023 had come following a plea by Rujira Banerjee where she alleged that central probe agencies and the media are assassinating her character and maligning her family by regularly publishing information regarding the probe being carried out by the agencies, including the ED, regarding alleged financial and other scams. The High Court had issued a set of directives both for the media and the central probe agencies. For the agencies, it directed that before filing of a charge-sheet, the investigating agencies (in the present case, the ED) shall not disclose to the public or the media the circumstances, reasons and/or details of the interrogation, raids and search of any particular person, be he/she an accused, a suspect of a witness. Further, it was directed that "the Investigating Agencies in general and the ED in particular shall not involve or be accompanied by media persons during any raid/interrogation, search and seizure procedure at any point of time and also shall not disclose prior information of such raids, interrogations, searches and seizures before holding the same."
The court had directed that these guidelines will be followed by the investigating agencies, in particular, the ED, and all media houses till January 15, 2024 or until a further order, whichever is earlier.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.