Narada case: Leaders to stay in jail as HC adjourns hearing till Thursday
The Calcutta High Courtadjourned till Thursday the hearing in the Narada sting tapecase, in which two West Bengal ministers, an MLA and a formermayor of Kolkata were arrested by the CBI.
In view of the adjournment on Wednesday, ministersSubrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim, Trinamool Congress MLAMadan Mitra and former city mayor Sovan Chatterjee willcontinue to remain in judicial custody.
The petition of the CBI seeking transfer of trial inthe case and the recalling application filed by the fourleaders on the high courts stay order on the bail granted bya CBI court on Monday will be further heard by the divisionbench comprising acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal andJustice Arijit Banerjee on Thursday.
The high court on Monday night stayed the lowercourts decision to grant bail to the four leaders, arrestedand charge-sheeted by the CBI in the Narada sting case.
The division bench had said that it deemed itappropriate to stay the special courts order and direct thatthe “accused person shall be treated to be in judicial custodytill further orders”.
The four leaders were arrested on Monday morning fromtheir residences in the city in connection with the Naradasting case that is being investigated by the CBI on an orderby the high court.
The CBI prayed before the high court that it transfersall proceedings in the Narada sting tape case to itself.
It also prayed that the division bench declares thatthe proceedings before the special CBI court post productionof the arrested accused virtually on May 17 are a nullity inthe eyes of law and to conduct the proceedings afresh.
The CBI further prayed that pending the final hearingand disposal of its petition before it, the high court directcontinuance of its order staying the bail granted to theaccused by the lower court.
Seeking transfer of the case from the special court,the CBI claimed that all the four persons arrested are veryinfluential persons and it apprehends that they will influenceand threaten the witnesses and the system.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the CBI,submitted during the hearing through the virtual mode that theincidents following the arrests were unprecedented.
“Their influence could be ascertained by the conductof the Honble Chief Minister, Honble Law Minister, otherHonble Ministers and other eminent elected representatives,and the conduct of the mob at CBI Office and court premises on17.05.2021,” the CBI said in its petition.
It claimed that while the matter was being heard bythe special CBI court, the CBI office was held under gherao byChief Minister Mamata Banerjee, MPs Kalyan Banerjee andSantanu Sen, and TMC MLA Humayun Kabir, while an unruly crowdindulged in stone pelting at the CBI office premises.
The CBI said that the chief minister entered the CBIoffice premises at 10.50 am on Monday.
The investigating agency claimed that while enteringthe CBI Office, she started shouting “You also arrest me” andsat on a dharna for six hours.
It further said that state “Law Minister Malay Ghatak,MP Kalyan Banerjee and other important functionaries of theruling party with a very large threatening mob of personsremained in the court premises till the arguments werecompleted.” The CBI has made the chief minister, the law ministerand Kalyan Banerjee party in its petition seeking transfer ofthe case.
The agency claimed in its transfer petition before thehigh court that due to the gherao and violence resorted to bythe mob, it was not possible for the CBI officers to move outof their office to enable them to physically produce theaccused in the court and to produce the case diary before itas required by Constitution and the law.
It claimed that under the said circumstances, the CBIcourt passed the order granting bail to the four, “under thecloud of mobocracy, pressure, threat and violence and is anullity in the eyes of law”.
Appearing for the arrested leaders, senior counselAbhishek Manu Singhvi claimed that there were democraticprotests and that these did not affect the process of law andhearing before the special CBI court.
He submitted that the chief minister and otherministers did not in any way instigate the protesters and hadinstead urged them to maintain peace.
Singhvi further submitted that there is no relationbetween the protests and the special CBI courts ordergranting bail.
He questioned why were the two ministers – Mukherjeeand Hakim, and the other two former ministers – Mitra andChatterjee, arrested even though they cooperated with theinvestigation all along.
It was further stated that there was no reason fortheir being in custody since a charge sheet against them wassubmitted by the investigating agency before the CBI court onMonday.
Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar had on May 7 sanctioned theprosecution of Hakim, Mukherjee, Mitra and Chatterjee on arequest by the CBI on the ground that all of them were holdingpositions of ministers in the state at the time of the allegedcommission of the crime.
The Narada sting tapes, which were made public beforethe 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal, were claimed tohave been shot in 2014, wherein people resembling TMCministers, MPs and MLAs were allegedly seen receiving moneyfrom representatives of a fictitious company in lieu ofpromised favours.
The sting was conducted by Mathew Samuel of NaradaNews portal.
The Calcutta High Court had ordered a CBI probe intothe Narada sting operation in March 2017.
The CBI had registered cases against 12 TMC leaders,many of whom are now in the BJP, and an IPS officer.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Federal staff and is auto-published from a syndicated feed.)