CBI makes Mamata party to Narada case; TMC files FIR

KOLKATA: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday named Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, law minister Moloy Ghatak and senior lawmaker Kalyan Banerjee as respondents in its plea to transfer the Narada corruption case out of the state, claiming violent protests orchestrated by the Trinamool Congress have hampered its probe and intimidated lower courts.

The four senior Bengal leaders arrested on corruption charges spent their third night in judicial custody after the Calcutta high court decided to continue hearing their bail plea on Thursday. In Kolkata, minister of state for health Chandrima

Bhattacharya filed an FIR against CBI over the arrest of senior ministers Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee, and legislator Madan Mitra, alleging they were held illegally.

The three leaders, along with former Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee, were arrested on Monday morning in connection with the 2014 sting operation (details of which went public in 2016), setting off fierce protests by the TMC and a six-hour long agitation at CBI office by Banerjee.

In its transfer petition, the agency claimed the protests and stone-pelting mob prevented CBI officers from physically producing the accused in the court. “The CBI court passed the order granting bail to the four under the cloud of mobocracy, pressure, threat and violence and is a nullity in the eyes of law,” the federal agency said, marking the first time in recent history that a sitting chief minister was named in a case transfer petition. The bail granted by the special CBI court on Monday evening was stayed by the high court hours later.

TMC rejected the charge and blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

THE INVESTIGATIVE AGENCY SAID VIOLENT PROTESTS IN THE STATE HAVE HAMPERED ITS PROBE IN THE CASE