Kolkata: According to several news reports, Trinamool Congress (TMC) general secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s wife Rujira Banerjee on Monday was turned back from Kolkata airport by immigration officials following a lookout circular by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection to the Bengal coal scam.
Rujira Banerjee has been interrogated multiple times by both the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the ED in relation to a large-scale coal smuggling scandal involving crores of rupees.
Her lawyers said that, “She was stopped at the immigration, citing a lookout notice issued by the ED in a case. There is a court order, which has clearly said that there is no bar on her travelling abroad.”
The case of coal smuggling was initially registered by the CBI in November 2020, with the ED subsequently joining the investigation. The allegations suggest that a well-organised racket operating in the western parts of Bengal, where the Eastern Coalfields Limited operates several mines, has been involved in the illegal mining and sale of coal worth billions of rupees on the black market over several years.
According to the probe agencies, illegal mining activities were carried out in leasehold mines of Eastern Coalfields in Kunustoria and Kajora near Asansol, West Bengal. Investigations have uncovered financial transactions amounting to ₹1,300 crore, a significant portion of which allegedly went to influential individuals. It has been said that these influential individuals used hawala channels to deposit the money into their foreign bank accounts.
Abhishek Banerjee, a Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha, along with his wife Rujira, have been interrogated by both the ED and CBI in connection with this case in the past.
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