New Delhi: Mamata makes ‘protect the people’ plea to CJI Kant at Bengal event amid row with Centre over ED action
Kolkata: Kolkata: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday urged Chief Justice of India Surya Kant to “protect” the country’s constitution, democracy and judiciary from a “disaster”, called for an end to the rising trend of media trials, arguing that public narratives often bypass the legal process before cases are officially disposed of.
“My request to the Chief Justice and all the judges. Please see that our Constitution, democracy, safety and security, history, geography and our boundary are protected from disaster. Media shouldn’t engage in a media trial before a case is finalised (court delivers its judgment). This is a trend nowadays to malign the people. There are deliberate attempts by agencies to defame the people,” CM Banerjee said, while addressing a gathering at the inauguration of the new building of the Calcutta high court’s Jalpaiguri circuit bench.
The Chief Justice of India and the chief justice of Calcutta high court were present at the event.
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She added: “Please protect the people. I am not saying this for myself. Save democracy, the judiciary, the country and save the Constitution. We are under your custody. There is no above the judiciary.”
The chief minister’s statement comes in the backdrop of an ongoing legal confrontation between the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Trinamool Congress-led West Bengal government since the federal agency searched 10 locations , six in West Bengal and four in Delhi, in connection with a money laundering probe linked to alleged coal smuggling kingpin Anup Majee. Among the premises searched were the Salt Lake office of political consultancy firm I-PAC and the residence of its director Pratik Jain, during which Banerjee entered Jain’s residence and took away documents and a laptop, accusing the agency of seizing her party’s internal documents and sensitive data relating to the 2026 assembly polls, including the candidate list. The agency, in turn, accused the TMC chief of interfering with its operation and removing evidence.
ED subsequently filed petitions in the Calcutta high court and the Supreme Court against Banerjee who, too, lodged criminal complaints against the central agency alleging that it “stole” valuable data relating to her party’s strategy for the 2026 assembly polls and the candidate list.
Senior BJP leader Rahul Sinha hit out at the CM over the remarks, saying: “She is apprehensive of the outcome in the case in the Supreme Court. The media showed everything that happened on January 8. The chief minister herself said on camera that she had taken away laptop and documents. Now she is trying to play the victim card in front of the judges. She is actually saying this for herself.”
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During the event, the chief minister also urged justice Kant to take care of the new generation of lawyers, alleging that junior lawyers were struggling and not receiving their due benefits.
She alleged that although the central government had “stopped funding” for fast-track courts in West Bengal, her government had set up 88 such courts. “We have already spent more than ₹1,200 crore on courts. Please do not mind (referring to Union Law and Justice Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal among the attendees); though the Centre has stopped the funding, we are continuing the fast-track courts,” she said.
Of these, 52 courts are for women, seven are POCSO courts, four labour courts, and 19 are human rights courts, the CM said, adding that the new Jalpaiguri Circuit Bench building was “better than the Calcutta High Court (building)”.
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