Can ED really run to Mamata's Government for Relief against Mamata's Government?: SC scorches West Bengal's logic on I-PAC Raid obstruction

The Supreme Court questioned whether the Enforcement Directorate could reasonably be directed to seek redress from the West Bengal government, the very entity accused of obstructing its raid, as arguments over the maintainability of the ED's Article 32 petition entered their second day.

At the heart of the dispute lies a January 8 raid by the ED on the I-PAC office, the political consultancy linked to the Trinamool Congress, during which Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee allegedly arrived at the premises with party leaders and state police, removed files and digital devices, and effectively disrupted the investigation. In the aftermath, the West Bengal Police registered three FIRs against ED officials. The ED retaliated by approaching the Supreme Court under Article 32, seeking a CBI-led probe and relief from what it terms targeted harassment by state machinery.

Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for West Bengal, mounted a frontal challenge to the ED's standing, arguing that investigative agencies exercise statutory, not fundamental rights, and therefore cannot invoke Article 32 or Article 226 writ jurisdiction. Sibal warned that admitting such petitions would open a "Pandora's box," and contended that any obstruction complaint must flow through the state police, or alternatively through prosecution under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

A bench of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice NV Anjaria was visibly unconvinced. Justice Mishra sharply noted that Section 66 of the PMLA, governing information disclosure, was inapplicable here, as the ED's allegations concerned a second, distinct set of offences committed during the PMLA investigation, not within it. On Sibal's suggestion that the state machinery offered an adequate remedy, Justice Mishra pushed back pointedly, "The CM barges into an ED investigation, and your idea of remedy for the ED is to go to the state government, which is headed by the CM?" .

The bench further observed that ED officers retain their citizenship, and therefore their fundamental rights, regardless of their official designation, asking, "Merely because at that point of time they are officers of the ED, do they cease to become citizens of India?" The Court made no final ruling, with arguments scheduled to resume in April.