In appeal to Supreme Court, Abhishek Banerjee’s wife requests permission to travel abroad

Abhishek Banerjee’s wife, Rujira, petitioned the Supreme Court for permission to travel overseas. She is the wife of the head of the Trinamool Congress (TMC). On July 12, the court will hear the plea.

 

In a case involving coal smuggling, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is looking into the two. Senior attorney Kapil Sibal requested that the Supreme Court consider this case on Monday in an appeal. The case’s hearing, though, shouldn’t be dropped from the list.

 

Sibal’s request was granted by a Supreme Court panel chaired by Justice Sanjay Kishen Kaul. Just before boarding a flight with her two children bound for Dubai last month, Rujira Banerjee was prevented from travelling abroad by the immigration department at the airport in Kolkata.

 

Rujira Banerjee cannot travel abroad, according to representatives of the immigration department, because a lookout circular was issued in the matter that the ED is currently looking into.

 

The ED asserts that Abhishek Banerjee and his family are associated with two businesses, Leaps and Bound and Leaps and Bound Management Services. According to the investigation agency, these companies allegedly received protection monies totaling Rs 4.37 crore from a construction business through the accused, who are being investigated in the coal smuggling case.

 

Amit Banerjee, the father of Abhishek Banerjee, is one of the company’s directors. Along with his father, Rujira Banerjee is a director of Leap and Bound Management Services Limited. The imprisonment of Rujira Banerjee at the Kolkata airport, according to her attorneys, was against Supreme Court directives.

 

‘She was stopped at immigration along with her minor kids and told that she cannot travel abroad. She was also handed over a copy of summons directing her to appear before the ED office in Kolkata on June 8. We will be moving the court as it has been a violation of the Supreme Court’s order,’ Rujira’s lawyer said.

 

‘Though not required to intimate, still to express her bonafide, Rujira Banerjee, wife of TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee informed the ED through email of her upcoming visit to Dubai from June 5 to June 13 with her children. There was no response from ED objecting to such a visit which they could not have in view of the orders of the Supreme Court,’ her lawyer added.