Snehal Upadhyay-
The High Court of Calcutta has allowed the application which was filed by Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of the state and Moloy Ghatak, law minister of state seeking acceptance of their affidavits related to the Narada Scam case.
The affidavits allege the situation of the state concerning its law and order on May 17 outside the CBI office, when the four accused TMC leaders were arrested.
The constitutional bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal, and Justices IP Mukherjee, Harish Tandon, Soumen Sen and Arijit Banerjee has granted CBI 10 days to file its response and has allowed payment of Rs 5,000/- by each of the applicants.
Earlier the High Court denied recording their affidavits stating that, “They waited for the arguments in the case to be substantially completed before seeking to place on record their pleadings in response.”
The CBI contended that by not filing affidavits even after issuance of notice the respondents have taken a risk, whereas the state responded that there was no delay in filing of affidavits and said that the Court must allow full facts to be presented before it.
The Supreme Court put aside Calcutta High Court’s order and ordered the legislators to file an application before the High Court mentioning the reasons for the delay in filing such affidavits.
