Delhi Court remands TMC's Anubrata Mondal to ED custody till March 10 in cattle smuggling case

Following a midnight hearing, a Delhi court on Wednesday reportedly remanded All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) leader Anubrata Mondal to the custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) until March 10 in relation to the multi-crore cattle smuggling scam case charged against him. .Mondal was booked for allegedly smuggling cattle to Bangladesh by bribing the Border Security Force (BSF) personnel. .He was reportedly taken to Delhi from West Bengal by air on Tuesday and produced before a Delhi court, after the Calcutta High Court on Saturday, March 4, declined to halt the process. .Special Judge Rakesh Kumar is reported to have ordered the ED to produce Mondal before a regular court on March 10. .As per the prosecution case, the prime accused Md Enamul Haque and his associates had conspired along with BSF personnel and custom officials o illegally smuggle cattle to Bangladesh. To enable the movement of the cattle through the districts of Birbhum and Murshidabad, Haque had obtained illegal favours from the Mondal, a 'powerful political satrap.'The CBI has alleged that Mondal used his influence to facilitate the crime and received wrongful gains for his patronage. He was, however, arrested in the case on August 11 last year..Earlier, by a March 4 order, Justice Bibek Chaudhuri of the Calcutta High Court had rejected Mondal's plea to prevent the probe agency from producing him before the Delhi court.Among other grounds, Mondal had claimed that the ED had submitted orally that it would not be proceeding with the production of Mondal before the trial court at Delhi. The High Court had, however, noted that even going by the online report relied on by Mondal to support his claim, the ED's oral assurance was only that it would refrain from executing the production warrant until January 9. The High Court had further noted that although Mondal had earlier complained of suffering from illness, he has since been discharged from the hospital. There is no acute reason to hold that Mondal is unfit by reason of his sickness from being removed to Delhi, the High Court had said. Notably, the Calcutta High Court had also criticised Mondal for attempting to "forum shop" and obviate the proceedings before the Delhi court. "Successive applications filed by the petitioner in different courts for obtaining favourable order are undoubtedly a clear instance of ‘forum shopping’. This practice can never be encouraged," the Calcutta High Court had said. In view of this, the High Court had also imposed a fine of ₹1 lakh on Mondal to be paid to the High Court Legal Services Authority as compensation "for instituting successive, harassing applications of similar nature before the highest seat of judiciary of two States of the Country to obviate the process of the Court.".Prior to this, on January 4, the Calcutta High Court had rejected Mondal's bail plea in the case after noting that the TMC leader was an 'influential' person, who has been involved in intimidating the witnesses..[Read Calcutta High Court order dated March 4]