E-Paper
Narada sting: Arrested leaders to stay under house arrest, rules Calcutta HC
The court was scheduled to take up the case on Thursday but the first division bench didn’t assemble on the day. “The matter is likely to be heard today,” said an advocate who is also a TMC leader
The Calcutta high court, hearing the bail plea of the four politicians arrested in 2016 Narada sting case along with the CBI’s plea to transfer the trial, ordered that all the four politicians, accused in the 2016 Narada sting operation case, would stay under house arrest.
“There was a difference of opinion between Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and justice Arijit Banerjee over the bail plea of the four accused so the division bench ordered that a large bench be constituted to hear the matter. Till then, the four accused would be kept under house arrest,” said Manishankhar Chatterjee, advocate.
The two Cabinet ministers, Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee, TMC legislator Madan Mitra and former mayor Sovan Chatterjee, who were arrested by the CBI on Monday have already spent four nights in judicial custody.
The case pertains to a two-year-long sting operation whose videos were uploaded months ahead of the 2016 assembly elections. The sting, conducted by online news portal Narada News, purportedly caught several senior TMC leaders accepting money in exchange for favours to a fictitious company.
Also Read | CBI makes Mamata party to Narada plea; TMC files FIR
Advocate Kalyan Banerjee told the court hat Hakim’s presence was necessary for managing Covid crisis in Kolkata. “As two of the accused persons are ministers in the state government, the court also permitted them access to administrative files and to meet government officials through video conferencing,” said an advocate.
The court rejected the requests made by the TMC leaders’ advocates for their release on interim bail until the matter is heard by a larger bench. It also turned down the CBI’s plea to keep them in jail.
Even though all four leaders were sent to judicial custody, all of them had to be admitted in hospitals after their complaint of illness on Tuesday. While Hakim is admitted to the hospital of Presidency Correctional Home, the rest were admitted to the state-run SSKM hospital. The hospital authorities have set up a medical board to treat them.
