Bailable warrant issued against the wife of Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee

A Delhi court has issued a bailable warrant against Rujira Banerjee, wife of Abhishek Banerjee, nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The warrant has been issued against Rujira after the Enforcement Directorate did not join the investigation despite repeated summons. The ED is probing money laundering against him in the coal smuggling case.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Sarwaria has issued this order on the plea of ​​ED. Earlier, the agency's Special Public Prosecutor Nitesh Rana told the court that despite several summons being issued against the accused, she was not appearing before the court or the investigating agency. The court has fixed August 20 for the next hearing on the matter.

The ED had registered a case under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act on the basis of an FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in November 2020. The CBI has registered an FIR in connection with the alleged multi-crore scam related to the mines of Eastern Coalfields Limited in and around Asansol in the Kunustoria and the Kajora areas of the state. The ED had earlier claimed that Abhishek Banerjee was the beneficiary of funds received from this illegal business. However, he has denied all the allegations.

On March 21, the ED had questioned Abhishek Banerjee for nearly eight hours in the money laundering case related to the coal scam of more than 5500 crores in Kolkata and Jharkhand. The next day i.e. on 22 March, his wife Rujira Banerjee was also called for questioning but she could not reach him.