West Bengal: CBI quizzes Abhishek Banerjee's wife for 7 hours in coal case

KOLKATA: An-eight-member CBI team questioned Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee's wife Rujira for nearly seven hours on the illegal coal mining case at her Kolkata home on a day her husband was away in Tripura on a party campaign for assembly bypolls.
On Tuesday, CBI questioned Rujira for the second time 15 months after they quizzed her in March 2021. In the meantime, Enforcement Directorate had summoned the couple to its headquarters in New Delhi, following which the pair moved court seeking questioning in Kolkata.
Banerjee, who was in Tripura to campaign for the June 23 bypolls, said: "I have come to Tripura today and they have sent a notice to my wife yesterday. Clearly, they wanted to stop my visit to Tripura."
CBI investigators, including women officers, reached Banerjee's 'Santiniketan' home on Harish Mukherjee Road at 11.25am and recorded Rujira's statement in two phases. Agency sources said it had sent summons to Rujira and she had asked CBI to come to her home on Tuesday.
According to CBI sources, Rujira was questioned on her overseas bank accounts - the first was a purported account with Barclays Bank of London, the other an account with Kasikorn Bank, Siam Paragon branch, in Thailand. The investigators wanted to know if she had any intimation of the two accounts and the money transferred there; they also asked if she was aware of a 1.5-million-baht transaction done on November 3, 2018.
Agency officials got hold of some "digital evidence" from the income tax department that included the transcript of cellphone conversation between Niraj Singh, accountant of one of the accused Anup Majee, and Bankura police station's former OC Ashok Mishra. It recorded how money was transferred to several accounts of beneficiaries.
Mishra was arrested by ED in April last year; Singh is absconding.
According to ED estimates submitted to Delhi High Court, nearly Rs 1,352 crore were generated from the illegal coal mining business between July 2018 and December 2019 and the "proceeds of crime" were distributed among "coal mafias, politicians and other officers".
In 2018 and 2019, an amount of Rs 218 crore and Rs 513 crore were transferred to accused Vikas Mishra, alias 'Chhotu', brother of former Trinamool Congress youth wing leader Vinay Mishra.
Meanwhile, ED, which is probing the money laundering aspect of the illegal coal mining case, has sent Rujira a notice asking for a suitable time to question her.