Bribery charge and a sting: Decoding the Narada case

KOLKATA: Between February and April 2014, a bunch of leaders of West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and a senior Indian Police Service officer in the state met with a businessman who offered them money in return for help to run his business. In truth, there was no businessman; the man offering them money, and surreptitiously recording the videos on his iPhone was Delhi-based journalist Mathew Samuel .

Among the people who were caught in his sting were then TMC Rajya Sabha MP Mukul Roy (now a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party), then Lok Sabha MPs Saugata Roy, Aparupa Poddar, Sultan Ahmed, Prasun Banerjee and Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, then ministers Firhad Hakim, Suvendu Adhikari (now with the BJP, and the leader of the opposition in West Bengal), Sovan Chatterjee (who was also the Kolkata mayor) Subrata Mukherjee and Madan Mitra. Then MLA Iqbal Ahmed and IPS officer Saiyaad Mustafa Hussain Mirza were also caught on camera. Mukul Roy could not be seen in the videos accepting the cash directly.

The videos did not surface for two years. On March 13, 2016 Samuel uploaded the videos on the website of Narada News which raised a storm as assembly polls were about to be held. TMC leaders went on the defensive, calling the sting operation a conspiracy and dismissing the videos as fake. The BJP, Left and the Congress made the Narada videos an election issue but in the election, the TMC won 211 seats, 27 seats more than in the party’s first landmark victory in 2011. The Congress and Left moved the Calcutta high court, demanding a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

On March 17, 2017, the Calcutta HC ordered the CBI to conduct a preliminary inquiry and submit a report after taking into the custody the devices used in the sting operation and forensic reports from the committee constituted by the court. It also directed the CBI to ascertain whether the accused leaders accepted the money. The court said that depending on the result of the enquiry, CBI should register an FIR and proceed with the investigation.

The TMC filed a special leave petition before the Supreme Court, challenging the HC order. On March 21, 2017, the top court upheld the order of the HC but granted one month to CBI for the preliminary inquiry.

On April 17, 2017, CBI registered a case under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 7 & 13(2) r/w 13(1) (a) & (d) of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The agency said the enquiry revealed prima facie material for registration of a regular case (FIR). Congress and Left workers demanded the immediate arrest of the accused TMC leaders. CBI started the probe and many of the accused were questioned but no arrest was made. In September 2017, Mukul Roy resigned from the TMC. He was suspended from the party for six years for anti-party activities. He also resigned from the Rajya Sabha in October, 2017. He joined the BJP in November and in 2020, he was made national vice-president of the BJP.

In September 2017, TMC leader Iqbal Ahmed died of a heart attack in Kolkata. In June 2018, the CBI probe apparently received a boost when the agency’s then special director Rakesh Asthana visited Kolkata and held a long meeting with officers to review the Narada case. In November 2018, the Bengal government withdrew the so-called general consent states give to CBI to operate on their turf. In September 2019, IPS officer Mirza was arrested by CBI. The ministry of home affairs (MHA) granted the agency permission to move against him.

In February 2020, the Lok Sabha secretariat sought the Union law ministry’s opinion on a request by CBI for sanction to prosecute three sitting TMC MPs, accused in the case, within weeks of receiving the agency’s request, senior officials at the Lower House said. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) also started a parallel investigation.

In August 2020, ED sent notices to five TMC leaders and summoned suspended IPS officer Mirza.

The TMC leaders were Lok Sabha members Saugata Roy and Kakali Ghosh Dastidar, former Lok Sabha member Aparupa Poddar, then minister Suvendu Adhikari and TMC leader Ratna Chatterjee who is the estranged wife of former Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee who is an accused in the case.

Suvendu Adhikari joined the BJP in December 2020.

IN NOVEMBER 2018, THE BENGAL GOVT WITHDREW THE SO-CALLED GENERAL CONSENT STATES GIVE TO CBI TO OPERATE ON THEIR TURF