Lekha G
Calcutta High Court heard CBI’S case against bail granted to TMC leaders Firhad Hakim, Madan Mitra, Subrata Mukherjee and Souvan Chatterjee in the Narada Scam case.
The CBI pleaded to transfer the bail applications from the Special CBI Court to the High Court, citing the “Unprecedented mob pressure” exerted by the protests of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Law Minister Moloy Ghatak along with their supporters.
A Special Court on Monday had granted interim bail to the four leaders after the CBI detained them in connection with the sting operation. However, the interim bail was stayed by the Calcutta High Court and subsequently sent them to Judicial custody.
The Stay had been granted after the CBI had sought a transfer of the case from the Court dealing with the same, while also citing a threat to the probe agency on the ground that TMC leader and West Bengal Chief Minister and others were sitting in dharna outside the agency’s office.
TMC leader Madan Mitra’s lawyer Niranjan Bhattacharya said, “We have applied to vacate the stay on the bail of the arrested TMC leaders and the application has been accepted but Tushar Mehta purposely prolonged the case by going slow”.
The case is related to the Narada tapes which were made public in 2016 shortly before the Assembly elections of the state. The purported videos showed politicians allegedly accepting bribes on camera from the operator of a fictitious company.
In March 2017, the Calcutta High Court had directed the CBI to probe the tapes following which the agency filed an FIR against 13 persons in April 2017, including the four persons who were arrested on Monday.
The Calcutta High Court to hear the case further tomorrow at 2 pm.
