CBI makes Mamata party to Narada plea; TMC files FIR
THE INVESTIGATIVE AGENCY SAID VIOLENT PROTESTS IN THE STATE HAVE HAMPERED ITS PROBE IN THE CASE
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).
“I am not going into the merits of the case it is sub judice. But the timing of the arrest and the manner in which the case is being dealt clearly shows BJP is behaving in a vindictive manner. It is not being able to digest the humiliating defeat and accept the people’s mandate. We have full faith on the judiciary,” said Kunal Ghosh, TMC spokesperson
Wednesday saw a pitched courtroom battle before the division bench of acting chief justice Rajesh Bindal and justice Arijit Banerjee. All four leaders are in hospital currently. Hakim is admitted in the hospital of Presidency Correctional Home, the other three are at state-run SSKM hospital.
“They (four leaders) are not in jail. They are in hospital. They should be in jail. That is my case,” solicitor general Tushar Mehta, representing CBI, told the court, adding that all the four accused were highly influential and can influence the witnesses and investigation.
But Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the four leaders, argued CBI was trying to keep the leaders in jail for one more day or two more days, “by hook or crook, more by hook than crook”.
“All the accused are in hospital. Where can they run away?” Singhvi questioned while seeking bail, adding that no court
can stay interim bail without giving notice to the accused.
The case pertains to a twoyear-long sting operation whose videos were uploaded months ahead of the 2016 assembly elections. The sting, conducted by online news portal Narada News, purportedly caught several senior TMC leaders accepting money in exchange for alleged favours to a fictitious company.
TMC alleged the arrests were political vendetta by BJP,which lost the recent assembly polls, and questioned why CBI hasn’t arrested Suvendu Adhikari and Mukul Roy, who were also seen in the sting but have since switched from the TMC to the BJP.
On Monday, soon after the four were arrested, Banerjee staged a dharna at the CBI’s office in Kolkata, while state law minister Moloy Ghatak led nearly 3,000 workers and supporters to the court premises. Outside CBI’s office in south Kolkata, hundreds of TMC supporters staged a protest hurling bricks, bottles and shoes at central forces.
CBI said it was an orchestrated attempt to frustrate the course of justice and that there was “unprecedented hooliganism”.
“I don’t think anywhere else in the country such shocking incidents have happened where a premier investigating agency, which has been entrusted with the investigation by this court, is stopped from doing its job,” Mehta told the court.
In response, Singhvi described the chief minister’s dharna as a “Gandhian way of protest” without any exhortation of violence.
“Merely because a matter has gone to court, it will not stop democratic dissent. It would be negation of democracy to say that just because the matter is before court you cannot peacefully protest outside,” Singhvi told the court.
BJP dismissed TMC’s allegations.
“We don’t want to comment on what the CBI is doing or on the court proceedings. Law will take its own course and BJP is no way associated with this. But we have seen that if the CBI goes slow in a case the Left and the Congress allege that there is a secret pact between the TMC and BJP. If there is any activity, the TMC cries political vendetta. Not only is the BJP tired of listening to such allegations, even the people of Bengal are tired,” said Samik Bhattacharya, BJP spokesperson .