Kolkata: Trinamool Congress General Secretary and the party’s Lok Sabha member, Abhishek Banerjee, had arrived at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the West Bengal Police Thursday to face questioning in connection with the legislators’ signature mismatch case.
Earlier in the day, a single-judge vacation bench of Justice Kaushik Chanda had directed Abhishek Banerjee, also the nephew of the former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, to appear at the CID’s office by 6 p.m. and face the questioning in the matter.
The bench said that since Abhishek Banerjee has already dodged summons in the matter thrice, repeat of the same action would not be tolerated anymore and he would have to appear at the CID office and face questioning by 6 p.m. Thursday.
While the court order was announced, Abhishek Banerjee was in New Delhi.
After the court order, he hurriedly flew back to Kolkata from New Delhi. After arriving at the Kolkata Airport at around 4 p.m., he first went to his residence at Kalighat Road and from there he went to the CID’s headquarters at Bhabani Bhavan in South Kolkata, which is nearly a kilometre away from his Kalighat Road residence.
He arrived at the Bhabani Bhavan at 5:55 p.m., which is five minutes before the expiry of the deadline and went inside after signing the visitors’ register at the entrance of the building but without answering the queries from the waiting media persons.
However, there is no possibility of his arrest in the case till now, as earlier Thursday the single-judge vacation bench had already granted him an interim protection from coercive police action, including arrest in the matter for the next 21 days.
The bench also directed Abhishek Banerjee to fully cooperate with CID’s investigating officials in the matter.
The bench also added that, if necessary, the CID sleuths will also be able to conduct raid and search operations for investigation.
