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The Supreme Court asked the West Bengal government on Wednesday (March 18, 2026) if the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) was expected to merely “look and watch” when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee “barged” in and obstructed ongoing raids at the offices of the political consultancy firm I-PAC at Kolkata in January.
The remark from Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra, heading a Bench, was in response to the poll-bound State’s submissions that the ED was neither a “body corporate” nor a “legal or natural person” to approach the apex court under Article 32 of the Constitution claiming violation of its “fundamental rights”. West Bengal, represented by senior advocate Shyam Divan, raised preliminary objections to the maintainability of the ED’s writ petition filed under Article 32, seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe against Ms. Banerjee and the senior police officers who accompanied her.
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“If a Chief Minister, according to the ED, barges in and obstructs statutory work, is it that the ED cannot move either this court under Article 32 or the High Court under Article 226. So, will the ED be left remediless? This (Ms. Banerjee’s alleged actions) is an unusual situation, an unhappy situation. This has not happened before,” Justice Mishra addressed the State government.
The Bench asked what would be the situation if other Chief Ministers, taking the cue from Ms. Banerjee, started emulating her. “The law has to evolve according to new situations. There cannot be a vacuum. It cannot be that there is no remedy in law to a situation,” Justice Mishra observed.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for the ED, interjected to point out that the “Chief Minister, who is the head of the government in the State, hindered a lawful ongoing investigation being conducted in the larger public interest”. The ED has maintained that the raids were part of an investigation into a ₹2,742-crore coal smuggling case.
The ED is an instrument of the Centre, a department of the Central government, Mr. Divan submitted. The Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), which governs the ED, did not give the agency the “right to sue”.
“There is no question of the civil liberty or rights of the ED which is being trampled upon here. If the ED had a complaint, the Union government can invoke the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court under Article 131 of the Constitution and approach the Supreme Court directly,” Mr. Divan said.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Ms. Banerjee, said an officer of the ED did not have a “fundamental right” to investigate. The power is drawn from the PMLA.
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Mr. Sibal argued that the Centre cannot sue using Article 32 by using the ED as a front. Article 32 was only available to individuals wishing to approach the Supreme Court against encroachments by the state and its agencies on her civil rights.
If Central agencies, government departments and one or other instrumentalities of the state were allowed to approach the court under Article 32, they would start filing petitions against each other and private citizens. The Centre and its agencies would use Article 32 to bring States and their entities to court.
“The principle of federalism, a basic feature of the Constitution, would be in tatters. States are not mere appendages to the Centre. Courts must be on guard against the conscious whittling down of power of the States by the Union government,” Mr. Divan submitted.
Urging the court to throw out the ED’s petition as unmaintainable, the senior advocate said the ED was a part of the state machinery. It cannot come to court saying that another state had violated its fundamental rights.
“If Parliament wants to confer an agency the power to sue, it would confer the power specifically. Investigation agencies are not ‘body corporates’ with a power to sue,” Mr. Divan said, requesting the apex court to refer the case to a Constitution Bench.
The statutes and notifications which created other agencies, including the CBI, the Narcotics Control Bureau, the Intelligence Bureau, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, or, for that matter, the West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department, etc., were not authorised to sue, Mr. Divan said.
The court scheduled the next hearing on March 24.
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On January 15, the apex court stayed the Kolkata Police probe against the officers of the ED who conducted the raids. The State police investigation had been based on allegations that sensitive election records of the State’s ruling Trinamool Congress party, which consults I-PAC on electoral and political strategy, were “stolen” by the Central agency officials during the raids.
The Bench had previously said the case raises “serious” issues relating to the scope of the investigations carried out by Central agencies, including the ED, and interference by State agencies.
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