I-PAC director Vinesh Chandel sent to 10 days in ED custody

New Delhi: A special court in Delhi has sent I-PAC co-founder and director Vinesh Chandel to ten days of ED custody following his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case, officials said on Tuesday.

In a major action weeks ahead of the West Bengal assembly polls, the federal probe agency late Monday evening arrested Chandel in the case linked to an alleged coal scam in the poll-bound state.

Officials said Chandel, a law graduate from NLIU Bhopal, was taken into custody after questioning and produced before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court late Monday night. The court sent him to 10 days ED custody, they said.

Chandel's premises in Delhi, apart from that of another I-PAC co-founder and director, Rishi Raj Singh, in Bengaluru and that of former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) communications in-charge Vijay Nair in Mumbai, were raided by the ED on April 2 as part of this investigation.

I-PAC has been providing political consultancy to the TMC and the West Bengal government since 2021. There was no immediate comment from the organisation.

Abhishek Banerjee, the national general secretary of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), reacted to the development on Monday night saying the arrest of Chandel raises serious concerns about the fairness of the electoral process.

"The arrest of Vinesh Chandel, co-founder of I-PAC, barely 10 days before the Bengal elections, is not just alarming - it shakes the very idea of a level playing field," Banerjee said in a post on X.

The federal probe agency conducted raids in connection with the case on January 8 at the I-PAC office and the Kolkata residence of its founder and one of the directors, Pratik Jain, leading to a controversy after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee arrived at the location along with state government officials and took away documents.

The ED said its searches against I-PAC and Jain in Kolkata were "obstructed" by Banerjee, claiming relevant documents and gadgets were forcibly taken away by her and the state administration.

The chief minister and the TMC had countered these allegations, saying said the ED was attempting to take its election strategy-related documents from I-PAC premises just before the assembly polls in the state.

West Bengal will have a two-phase poll on April 23 and April 29.

The ED sought a CBI probe into this "gross abuse of power" by the CM from the Supreme Court, which is currently hearing the case.

The PMLA case stems from a November 2020 FIR of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that has alleged a multi-crore-rupee coal-pilferage scam related to Eastern Coalfields Limited mines in West Bengal's Kunustoria and Kajora areas, in and around Asansol.

The ED had said in a statement that a "hawala" operator linked to this alleged coal-smuggling ring had facilitated transactions of tens of crores of rupees to Indian PAC Consulting Private Limited, the registered company of I-PAC.