Narada case: All 4 accused granted interim bail by HC
In a setback to the CBI in the high-profile Narada sting bribery case, the “larger bench” of five judges of the Calcutta high court on Friday granted interim bail on certain conditions to four prominent accused — including two sitting West Bengal ministers — who were under house arrest after being in judicial custody after a stay on their an interim bail from a lower court within hours of their arrest on May 17.
Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justices I.P. Mukerji, Harish Tandon, Soumen Sen and Arijit Banerjee of the “larger bench” ordered the interim bail against a bond of ?2 lakhs for each of the accused four —Firhad Hakim, state transport minister and outgoing Kolkata mayor; Subrata Mukherjee, state panchayat minister; Madan Mitra, Trinamul Congress MLA of Kamarhati; and Sovan Chatterjee, former TMC minister and a former Kolkata mayor.
The high court however directed all the four accused to appear before the CBI investigating officer in “virtual” mode if summoned for questioning and barred them from speaking to the media on the case.
The order came after an explosive letter by Justice Arindam Sinha of the high court to all other judges on May 24 — on the treatment of the CBI’s plea as a writ petition for transfer of the Narada
case by the first division bench headed by the acting CJ — had surfaced.
Justice Sinha said: “The Appellate Side Rules require a motion seeking transfer, either on the civil or criminal side, to be heard by a single judge. However, the first division bench took up the matter, treating it as a writ petition. The application, if the communication made on May 17, 2021 can be considered as one, is by the investigating agency/prosecution against accused persons. It could not and was not treated as a public interest litigation.”
On the CBI’s allegations of “mobocracy”, he wondered: “The mob factor may be a ground on merits, for adjudication of the motion, but could the first division bench have taken it up and continue to hear it as a writ petition, is the first question?”
The judge also pointed out that from May 17 the four accused “continued to be in custody (jail) though they had obtained bail from the designated court. On that day when, on the intervention of the high court, the said persons were deprived liberty, there was no application on the record of this court, since the communication was not supported by an affidavit...”
The next day, Justice Sinha noted, as the first division bench did not assemble, “the public were presented with the situation of the high court having interfered with the liberty of their elected representatives...” He observed that on May 19, while Justice Banerjee of the first division bench favoured interim bail to the accused, the acting CJ’s view of ‘house arrest’ “prevailed”, to become an order on May 21.
Justice Sinha added: “The high court must get its act together. Our conduct is unbecoming of the majesty the high court commands. We have been reduced to a mockery. As such, I am requesting all of us to salvage the situation by taking such steps, including convening a full court, if necessary, for the purpose of reaffirming the sanctity of our rules and our unwritten code of conduct.”