Abhishek Banerjee’s aide moves SC seeking protection from arrest

Sumit Roy, personal assistant to TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee, has approached the Supreme Court seeking protection from arrest after the Calcutta High Court denied anticipatory bail in an alleged land-grabbing case. Roy remains absconding and is also facing a separate job scam probe

Kolkata: After being denied interim protection from coercive police action, including arrest, by the Calcutta High Court earlier this week in a case related to illegal land grabbing, Sumit Roy, the absconding Personal Assistant of Trinamool Congress General Secretary and Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha MP, Abhishek Banerjee, has now approached the Supreme Court seeking protection.

Earlier, Roy approached the Calcutta High Court with an anticipatory bail plea in the illegal land-grabbing matter. However, on August 3, Calcutta High Court’s single-judge bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh rejected that anticipatory bail plea.

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However, on the same day, Justice Ghosh granted Sumit a conditional anticipatory bail in a case related to ‘cash-for-a-state-government-job’. However, while granting conditional anticipatory bail in the job-related case, Justice Ghosh directed Sumit Roy to appear before the investigating agency officer within 10 days.

Now apprehending arrest in the land-grabbing-related case if he appears for investigation in the job-related case, the absconding aide of Abhishek Banerjee has now approached the Supreme Court for interim protection. If the investigators call him again later, he would still have to appear. Roy fears that if he goes to appear in this case, he may be arrested in connection with the land-corruption case.

Roy was accused of grabbing and selling government-vested land in Salboni in West Midnapore, using fake documents. Based on a complaint filed against Roy in the matter, the police launched an investigation. A search began for him. But when Roy could not be traced at any of his addresses, the police approached the district court in West Midnapore, which issued an arrest warrant against him.

On the same day, Roy’s counsel approached the Calcutta High Court seeking anticipatory bail through his counsel. Roy’s counsel had earlier requested an urgent hearing in the matter and also pleaded for a change of Bench for hearing. However, that request was rejected. The matter came up for hearing on Monday at the regular Bench of Justice Ghosh, which finally rejected the anticipatory bail plea.

Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of West Bengal Police in June issued a ‘lookout notice’ against Roy. On June 13, officers from the Salboni police station arrived at Trinamool MP Abhishek Banerjee’s residence in Kalighat in South Kolkata early in the morning in search of Roy.

The police were accompanied by central forces, and after waiting for a considerable time, the police broke open the lock and entered the premises. According to sources then, the last tower location trace for Roy’s mobile phone had been detected at Banerjee’s house. Acting on this lead, the police raided the residence. However, the PA was not found there. On the same day, the police also conducted a search at his in-laws’ house in Serampore in Hooghly district, but failed to locate him.