Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Thursday questioned the “hot haste” of the police in freezing three Trinamool Congress bank accounts based on a complaint filed just a day earlier and asked HDFC Bank to file a report by next Tuesday on the amount lying in these accounts and their authorised signatories.Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya did not give any relief to the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool faction, which challenged the freezing of the three bank accounts, but told the rebel Trinamool MLA ‘s counsel that their “complaint does not instil confidence in the mind of the court”. “It is an omnibus complaint. What were the relevant dates when the (alleged) malpractices took place concerning the three accounts?” he asked, directing cops to produce the materials available when they directed the bank to debit-freeze the accounts.The matter will be heard again next Wednesday.The complaint was lodged on June 18, an FIR was registered on the same day and HDFC Bank communicated that the three accounts werefrozen just a day later. “Why was this done in (such) hot haste? What were the materials?” the judge asked the police.The counsel for the loyalist Trinamool faction pressed for an interim order that would allow the party to make limited daily withdrawals, but solicitor-general Tushar Mehta, appearing on behalf of Bidhannagar Police, sought to defer the interim order to first allow cops to place some documents. “We have conducted an investigation that will show money was being siphoned off. We will place on record materials that may shock the court ‘s conscience,” Mehta submitted.Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the loyalist faction, submitted that a party could not be paralysed by the state machinery on a mere complaint simply because it had lost an election. “Both factions of the party will go to the Election Commission to decide which is the real party. But the police decided that the accounts needed to be frozen based on a complaint by a rebel MLA before the EC or court could decide,” Singhvi submitted. He also argued that the FIR itself was founded merely on “suspicion”.The judge did not pass any interim order, observing that the probe was at a nascent stage and it would not be appropriate to enter into the veracity of the allegations. “When the issue is hazy, it will not be proper for us to look into the veracity of charges. An in-depth analysis of the allegations cannot be examined now,” the court observed.
