TMC leaders jailed as HC denies bail in Narada case
KOLKATA: West Bengal ministers Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee spent the night in Kolkata’s Presidency Correctional Home while legislator Madan Mitra and former mayor Sovan Chatterjee were hospitalised as they complained of illness after the Calcutta high court stayed the bail of the four late on Monday.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday arrested the four under Section 120b (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act in connection with the 2016 Narada sting operation before a special court granted them bail. The case pertains to online news portal Narada News’s two-year-long sting operation. The videos of the operation were uploaded months ahead of the 2016 assembly elections and purportedly showed TMC leaders accepting money in exchange for alleged favours to a fictitious company.
Mitra and Chatterjee were hospitalised around 4 am on Tuesday. Chatterjee is diabetic, his friend Baisakhi Banerjee said. Mitra had earlier tested positive for Covid-19. “I am having breathing trouble. We are elected representatives. We are not thieves and dacoits. They [CBI] should not have treated us like this,” Mitra told reporters while being shifted to the hospital. A jail official said that Hakim and Mukherjee could also be sent for a check-up. Mukherjee accompanied Mitra and Chatterjee to the hospital but later returned to the jail. “I am not keeping well. I may have to go for a check-up on Tuesday,” Mukherjee told reporters at the hospital early on Tuesday.
NEW DELHI: The central government was rapped by the Delhi High Court on Tuesday for not filing its response to a plea by climate activist Disha Ravi for restraining the police from leaking to the media any probe material in relation to the FIR lodged against her in the toolkit case, despite granting a last and final opportunity to it in March this year.
“For Union of India is there no last and final opportunity? This is very bad. Then what is the meaning of the court saying last opportunity, I cannot understand that? What is the sanctity of (the court saying) last and final opportunity,” Justice Rekha Palli said to the Centre.
The strong remarks by the court came after it was told the Centre has not filed a response to Ravi’s plea yet.
The court on March 17 had granted a final opportunity to the Centre to file its reply to the petition.
On Tuesday, it was inclined to impose costs on the Centre, but the court did not do so after central government standing counsel Ajay Digpaul said that due to COVID-19 officials were not coming to office and therefore, the response could not be filed.
The court, thereafter, gave the Centre six more weeks to file its reply and listed the matter for hearing in August.