Following Monday’s ruckus over the Narada bribery case arrests and Mamata Banerjee’s protest outside the CBI office, the top investigation agency named the Chief Minister, her law minister Moloy Ghatak and party leader Kalyan Banerjee as parties before the High Court during a hearing today.
While seeking for transfer of the case from Bengal to another state, the Central Bureau of Investigation also requested that the 4 accused, currently in jail, be taken into police custody.
The agency blamed CM Mamata Banerjee and her associates for creating “terror” by their presence due to which it couldn’t seek custody of the 4 on Monday itself. “As a result of the terror created by and at the behest of the arrested accused persons” it wasn’t possible, the CBI said in its plea to the Calcutta High Court.
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Soon after the Governor gave his nod for the prosecution of Bengal Ministers Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, former Trinamool MLA Madan Mitra and Sovan Chatterjee- the agency arrested the 4 in the Narada Bribery case of 2014 on Monday morning to the shock of the Trinamool party leaders. Notably, the latter 2 were part of Trinamool earlier, quit to join BJP and quit that party too after some time.
The arrests triggered massive outrage from Trinamool workers who reached outside the CBI office in masses and protested against the move and lack of action against the other 2 who were a part of the bribery scandal but weren’t arrested as they were BJP members now.
The Chief Minister was also one among the people who held dharna claiming that the arrests were made “without due procedure”. She also told the CBI to arrest her too.
The CBI said that Ms Banerjee stood outside the office “along with a well-engineered crowd of thousands of miscreants and after ensuring media presence”.
It alleged that this was the strategy of the CM as “part of the larger and well thought of design to terrorize the investigating agency and preventing it from discharging its statutory functions freely and fearlessly”.
In its petition, the agency added that during the tense situation, it wouldn’t be possible to move the accused as asking for their custody could result in serious law and order issues. Due to this, it did not go ahead with the action, the CBI said.
After a 7-hour long commotion, the 4 accused received bail on Monday. However, they couldn’t taste liberty as the High Court put it on hold following the agency’s appeal. After the CBI filed a caveat, the case also reached the Supreme Court amid pleas from the ministers to the HC to withdraw its orders.
