ED must return confidential pol, electoral roll data: TMC in court
Times of India | 10 January 2026
Kolkata: Raising concern over violation of ‘Right to Privacy', Trinamool, in its petition demanded that ED should return ‘confidential and sensitive' documents seized during searches, which, according to it, included electronic documents such as ‘confidential political data relating to campaign strategy and electoral roll-related data' for the upcoming assembly polls.
In its petition against ED before Calcutta High Court, the party said the search and seizure of its political strategist I-PAC's office and its director's residence came after TMC chairperson Mamata Banerjee threatened to go to Supreme Court against the ‘insufficient' implementation of the SIR process.
It said, under the pretext of investigation, ED "unlawfully" gained access to and control over TMC's electoral roll management, campaign planning, and political strategy, with the intent to disrupt a free and fair electoral process.
It stated that the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) is a professional political consulting organisation that provides strategic, research, communications, and on-ground campaign support to political parties and netas across India. It stated that I-PAC was associated with TMC for 6 years, providing end-to-end campaign support. It stated that the organisation is "intrinsically" linked with TMC in maintaining "crucial, private, confidential and sensitive data", including that of the upcoming election.
"The seized articles and electronic data consist of confidential political data/information/documents relating to campaign strategy, internal assessments, research inputs, organisational coordination, and electoral roll-related data used for electioneering purposes in the forthcoming West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, 2026," the petition stated.
It claimed that these materials had no "nexus" with any scheduled offence or alleged proceeds of crime, and did not fall within the scope of the probe under PMLA. "Such targeted seizure amounts to an impermissible intrusion into TMC's right to privacy under Article 21 and its constitutional right to participate meaningfully in the democratic process under Article 19."
ED, in "complete transgression of its powers and authority" under the PMLA, conducted a "purported search and seizure," it said. It classified the data into 3 parts: financial and administrative transactions (registered office of I-PAC facilitates operations including employees' payroll processing and payments to contractual vendors of TMC); handling sensitive political information and managing human resource processes for personnel engaged in campaign and organisational work.
It called the search "a very calculative and well planned action to disturb political atmosphere and scenario in the state". "The entire action is out of political vendetta and to scuttle the democratic process of free and fair upcoming elections," it stated. "Members of opposition parties throughout the country are being selectively targeted, wherein TMC is not an exception, by the central agencies. The state has always been a contentious topic for the ruling dispensation at the Centre and that is why central agencies have always been over-enthusiastic while conducting their business in the state," it claimed in the petition.