Narada: After HC stayed bail, two Bengal ministers stayed the night in jail
Kolkata, May 18: Two Cabinet ministers in the West Bengal government had to spend. The night in Kolkata's Presidency Correctional Home after the Calcutta High Court stayed their bail on Monday night in connection with the 2016 Narada Sting case.
While Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee spent the night in the correctional home, ruling TMC legislators, Madan Mitra and Sovan Chatterjee had to be hospitalised after they complained of illness.
The four were arrested by the CBI on charges of bribery and corruption in the Narada case. A special CBI court had granted bail to the four, but the High Court stayed the same. The case will be heard on Wednesday.
The sting operation was conducted by Samuel of Narada News, a web portal, in 2014 wherein some people resembling TMC ministers, MPs and MLAs were seen receiving money from representatives of a fictitious company in lieu of favours.
At that time, the four were ministers in the Mamata Banerjee government which also had initiated a probe against Samuel.
The operation was made public ahead of the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal. The Calcutta High Court had ordered a CBI probe into the sting operation in March 2017.
"It's quite satisfying to see these leaders arrested. The CBI could not do anything even if it had the chargesheet ready three years ago. They could not touch them, Samuel said when PTI contacted him.
"But
I
feel
bad
that
Suvendu
Adhikaris
name
is
not
there
on
the
list
of
those
arrested,
Samuel
said.
When
pointed
out
that
the
CBI
also
did
not
take
any
step
against
former
TMC
MP
and
now
BJP
MLA
Mukul
Roy,
another
accused
in
the
case,
Samuel
said
that
his
is
a
different
matter
as
there
is
no
video
evidence
against
him.
The arrests were made after Governor Jagdeep Dhankar gave the CBI the go-ahead to prosecute the four leaders. West Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee dubbed the arrests as illegal, contending that the governor's sanction to prosecute them was unlawful.