The Supreme Court indicated it was not inclined to grant anticipatory bail to Sumit Roy, personal assistant to TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee, in a West Bengal land-grabbing case, with the Bench probing cash deposits into the party account even as his counsel argued no material connected Roy personally to the alleged offence.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday indicated that it was not inclined to grant anticipatory bail to Sumit Roy, the personal assistant to Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee, in a case concerning alleged land-grabbing at Salboni in West Bengal, with the Bench observing that Roy’s own answers during interrogation were creating “a circumstance where we may be reluctant to interfere” [Sumit Roy v. State of West Bengal].
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana heard the plea. The Court had earlier protected Roy from arrest while directing him to appear for interrogation and cooperate with the investigation. The submissions and allegations recorded below are those made at the hearing; nothing has been adjudicated, and Roy is not named as an accused in the FIR.
‘Show me one document bearing my signature’
Appearing for Roy, Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan mounted his case on the absence of any material tying his client personally to the alleged offence. He submitted that the case against Roy was supposed to concern transactions linked to government land, with the allegation that money from those transactions ultimately reached him and was deposited into his account, yet, after around 88 hours of questioning, he had never been confronted with any cash deposits in his own account or those of his family members, nor shown any deposit slips, bank records or documents bearing his signature.
“If there are transactions involving me, show one document bearing my signature or even one bank entry from my personal account. I am not even named in the FIR. After 88 hours of questioning, is there any material showing that I personally handled this money?” he submitted. He added that the largest deposit he had personally made was Rs. 60,000, and that even the main accused had stated that no money was given to him.
The cash deposits and the party account
The exchange that dominated the hearing concerned the distinction between Roy’s personal account and the Trinamool Congress party account. Justice Bagchi observed that bank statements showed cash deposits against entries carrying Roy’s PAN number. Sankaranarayanan responded that those deposits were into the party account, not Roy’s personal account, and that the entire sum of around Rs. 42.17 crore in the party account had been accounted for, submitting that “this case is not against the political party” and that political parties were in any event required to disclose their financial returns to the Election Commission.
Justice Bagchi drew out why, in his view, that distinction was the very thing requiring examination. He observed that while the party account received money from multiple sources, including membership fees, disclosures to the ECI might identify the recipient without establishing the original source of the funds, and that “if that money becomes relevant to a proceeds-of-crime investigation, the source assumes importance.” He added that the material being examined reflected that, during the same period when there were allegations that illegal money was being handed over to Roy, entries reflecting cash deposits were being made into the party account. The point, the Court indicated, was not necessarily that money went into Roy’s personal account, but that the contemporaneous deposits formed part of the material under scrutiny.
‘A fishing and roving inquiry’, or an offence requiring scrutiny?
Sankaranarayanan pressed that the proceedings had strayed far from any case against his client. The allegation, he said, related to 2021, when certain government land was allegedly sold to private persons, and he contended that no questions had been put to Roy on any alleged forgery. He submitted that the timing was telling: “The moment the election results were declared, suddenly 16 FIRs surfaced,” over transactions from around five years earlier. He described the exercise as having become “a fishing and roving inquiry into the political party,” and argued that Roy was “being used as an instrument to make me name someone within the political party.”
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for the State, resisted the challenge to the manner of questioning, submitting that Sankaranarayanan was “hair-splitting the investigation” and that investigators were entitled to put questions in whatever sequence they considered appropriate. Justice Bagchi, while assuring Roy that the Court was giving him “the longest possible rope,” observed that there were statements alleging illegal conversion of land, money being handed over to Roy, and contemporaneous cash deposits, and that “in a matter like this, there has to be an additional layer of judicial scrutiny.”
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‘We are not inclined to grant the relief’
As the hearing drew to a close, the Bench signalled its disinclination to interfere. When Sankaranarayanan submitted that Roy was “a small functionary in the system” who had fully cooperated and repeatedly submitted himself to questioning, and that this was a fit case for anticipatory bail because the entire case was documentary in nature, Justice Bagchi observed that he was “effectively seeking a blanket anticipatory bail.” The Chief Justice added pointedly that “the answers given by you during interrogation are themselves creating a circumstance where we may be reluctant to interfere,” and, as the arguments concluded, stated: “We are not inclined to grant the relief.”
Why the hearing matters
The hearing turns on a question that sits at the heart of anticipatory bail jurisprudence: how much of a personal, individualised link between the applicant and the alleged offence must the material disclose before custodial interrogation can be justified, particularly where the applicant is not named as an accused. Roy’s case rested on the absence of any document, bank entry or complainant tying him personally to the money, and on the contention that the true target was the political party he serves. The Court’s caution, by contrast, focused on the “additional layer of judicial scrutiny” it considered warranted where statements alleged that illegal money was handed over and where contemporaneous cash deposits, though into the party account, carried the applicant’s PAN, a linkage the Bench thought could not be dismissed at the anticipatory-bail stage.
The case also illustrates the delicate line courts must walk in politically-charged investigations. Roy’s counsel framed the proceedings as a post-election “fishing inquiry” into the party, with 16 FIRs surfacing over five-year-old transactions; the State framed the questioning as a legitimate exercise into the source of funds relevant to a proceeds-of-crime inquiry. The Court, without accepting either narrative, indicated that the applicant’s own answers had shaped its reluctance, a reminder that in an anticipatory-bail hearing the conduct and content of the interrogation are themselves part of the material the Court weighs. With the Bench disinclined to grant relief, the protection Roy has so far enjoyed appears, on the tenor of the hearing, to be at risk, though the final order will settle the position. Nothing has been decided on the merits, the allegations remain untested, and Roy continues to be a person not named as an accused in the FIR.
Case Title: Sumit Roy v. State of West Bengal
Bench: Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana
Date of Hearing: September 10, 2026