KalimNews, July 10, 2025, Jalpaiguri : In a major legal development, the Calcutta High Court’s Jalpaiguri Circuit Bench has quashed the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) freezing orders against two prominent tea estates in North Bengal’s Dooars region—Bamandanga-Tondu and Samsing Tea Gardens—effectively restoring control of the properties to their current owner, Rittik Bhattacharya.
The single-bench order, passed by Justice Om Narayan Rai on July 9, ruled that the ED has no legal grounds to impose a fresh freeze on assets belonging to the gardens, which include machinery, vehicles, and other movable property. The court held that the ED’s earlier asset seizures, conducted during the tenure of the previous owner Prasanna Kumar Roy, sufficed, and additional restrictions under Bhattacharya’s management were unwarranted.
The ED had launched its action as part of a wider investigation into the multi-crore West Bengal teachers’ recruitment scam, alleging that Roy, a close aide of jailed former state minister Partha Chatterjee, had diverted proceeds from the scam into various tea estates, real estate assets, and high-value goods. Roy, identified as a key middleman in the recruitment racket for Group C and D government posts, is accused of laundering illicit cash collected from thousands of undeserving candidates, promising them jobs in exchange for bribes.
In connection with this, the ED had earlier attached assets valued at ₹27.19 crore related to the three tea estates—Samsing Organic Tea Pvt Ltd, Yangtong Organic Tea Pvt Ltd, and Bamandanga Tea Estate Pvt Ltd—all allegedly controlled by Roy. The attachments included luxury bungalows, industrial tea processing units, and high-end vehicles. These seizures form part of the ED’s larger crackdown, which has so far led to asset attachments totaling a staggering ₹636.88 crore in the wider teachers’ recruitment scam, spanning both primary and secondary school appointments.
In its latest attempt, the ED issued a directive to freeze properties now under Bhattacharya’s ownership. However, Senior Advocate Prabal Kumar Mukherjee, representing Bhattacharya, contested the move in court. “We filed a challenge to the ED’s order, arguing that the new ownership is lawful and the ED had already executed sufficient seizures during the previous owner’s tenure. The Hon’ble Court ruled in our favour,” Mukherjee said after the hearing.
Bhattacharya, confirming the legal victory, stated, “I will personally visit both Bamandanga-Tondu and Samsing tea estates tomorrow to review operations and reassure the workers.”
The verdict has brought much-needed relief to hundreds of tea garden workers, many of whom had been worried about job security, wage payments, and operational continuity. Kailash Gope, a trade union leader affiliated with the Trinamool Congress, expressed gratitude on behalf of the workers. “There was great anxiety about what might happen if the ED took over operations. We feared wage disruptions and management collapse. This ruling has reassured the entire community,” he said.
This decision reaffirms judicial oversight over investigative actions involving property seizure and ensures that lawful businesses are not adversely affected by investigations into past ownership, especially when a transition of management has taken place.
The court’s ruling has broader implications for how central agencies pursue financial crime investigations, particularly in sectors like tea, where estate operations directly impact the livelihoods of thousands of workers and families.
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