I-PAC raids: Cal HC disposes of TMC's petition, adjourns ED's application
Kolkata (PTI): The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday disposed of the TMC's petition praying for protection of its data, saying the ED has informed that it has not seized anything from I-PAC director Pratik Jain's office and home during its raids last week.
TMC had moved the court seeking an order for preservation of personal and political data that may have been seized by the ED during its raids on these two premises on January 8.
Representing the ED, additional solicitor general SV Raju stated before the court that the agency had not seized anything from these two sites.
The ASG submitted that whatever the agency had seized was taken away by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Disposing of TMC's petition, Justice Suvra Ghosh observed that in view of the submissions made by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Union of India, nothing further remained to be adjudicated in the matter.
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The court also adjourned a separate petition filed by the ED seeking a CBI probe into the events of January 8, when Banerjee visited the political consultancy firm’s office in Salt Lake and its director’s residence on Loudon Street in south Kolkata during the raids.
The high court adjourned the central agency's plea on the ground that the ED has filed two special leave petitions before the Supreme Court with prayers "which are almost identical with the present application before it."
He argued that when a similar issue is pending before the apex court, a high court should refrain from hearing a matter on the same subject.
TMC’s counsel Menaka Guruswamy submitted that political parties have a right to privacy, as upheld by a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court.
Banerjee had visited the agency's operation venues on January 8 and alleged that investigators were attempting to seize sensitive data of the TMC ahead of the upcoming assembly polls.
Following the developments, both the TMC and the ED had approached the high court.
While the TMC in its writ petition sought judicial intervention to restrain the ED from "prejudice, misuse and dissemination" of seized data during the search operations, the agency moved the court alleging interference in its investigation, and prayed for transferring the probe to the CBI.
The ED has named Banerjee and some state officials as respondents in its petition, while the TMC petition was filed against the Union of India.
Justice Ghosh heard the matters with restricted courtroom entry, allowing only lawyers connected with the cases.
The direction to hold the hearings with regulated entry was given by Acting Chief Justice Sujoy Paul on Tuesday in view of unmanageable chaos inside the courtroom of Justice Ghosh on January 9 when these matters were to be taken up for hearing.
Justice Ghosh had adjourned the hearing till January 14, and left her chair after repeated requests to those not connected with the petitions to leave the courtroom fell on deaf ears.
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Wholesale price inflation rises to 8-month high of 0.83 pc in December
New Delhi (PTI): Wholesale price inflation increased for the second month in a row, rising 0.83 per cent in December 2025, driven by an uptick in prices of food, non-food articles, and manufactured items on a month-on-month basis, government data showed on Wednesday.
After witnessing a deflationary trend in the previous two months, the wholesale price index (WPI)-based inflation returned to positive in December. In November and October, the pace of price rise was negative at (-) 0.32 per cent and (-) 1.02 per cent, respectively.
In contrast, WPI inflation was 2.57 per cent in December 2024.
"Positive rate of inflation in December 2025 is primarily due to an increase in prices of other manufacturing, minerals, manufacture of machinery and equipment, manufacture of food products, and textiles, etc," the industry ministry said in a statement.
According to WPI data, deflation in food articles was 0.43 per cent in December, as against 4.16 per cent in November.
In vegetables, deflation was 3.50 per cent in December, compared to 20.23 per cent in November.
Barclays India Chief Economist Aastha Gudwani said narrowing deflation in "food articles" and a rise in inflation in "manufacturing products" drove the increase in the headline WPI inflation in December. "We expect modest increases in WPI inflation to continue".
In case of manufactured products, WPI inflation inched up to 1.82 per cent from 1.33 per cent in November 2025.
The non-food articles category showed an inflation of 2.95 per cent in December, against 2.27 per cent in November.
Negative inflation or deflation continued in the fuel and power sectors, at 2.31 per cent in December, against 2.27 per cent a month ago.
ICRA Senior Economist Rahul Agrawal said led by the hardening in YoY food inflation owing to an unfavourable base, rise in global commodity prices, and sustained pressure on the USD/INR pair over the past few months, ICRA expects the YoY WPI inflation to rise to 1.5 per cent in January, the highest level in 10 months.
Data released earlier this week showed the country's retail inflation inching up to 1.33 per cent in December, from 0.71 per cent in November, driven by rising food prices.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has reduced policy interest rates by 1.25 percentage points in the current fiscal year as inflation remained low.
The Reserve Bank, last month, significantly lowered the inflation projection for the current fiscal to 2 per cent from 2.6 per cent estimated earlier, as the economy continues to witness rapid disinflation.
The RBI mainly tracks retail inflation for deciding on benchmark interest rates.
Last month, the RBI cut key policy interest rates by 25 bps to 5.25 per cent, saying that the Indian economy is in a "rare Goldilocks period" marked by high growth and low inflation.
The Reserve Bank has raised its FY26 GDP growth projection to 7.3 per cent, from an earlier estimate of 6.8 per cent. India recorded an 8.2 per cent growth in the September quarter, and 7.8 per cent in the June quarter.
