Bengal minister Firhad Hakim, who’s former Kolkata Mayor, is amongst these arrested. (File)
New Delhi:
The Calcutta Excessive Courtroom on Friday granted interim bail to all of the 4 Bengal politicians – together with two ministers from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress – arrested by the CBI in reference to the Narada bribery case. The bail was granted to them citing the lockdown in West Bengal.
“We are going to grant them (TMC leaders) interim bail with sure circumstances and listen to the principle matter (CBI’s prayer for switch of the case exterior the state) as it’ll take per week or so,” the five-member bench stated.
The Excessive Courtroom granted interim bail on a private bond of Rs. 2 lakh with circumstances together with that the leaders mustn’t give media interviews on this case and may cooperate with the investigation.
In the course of the listening to, the CBI had contended all of the 4 have been influential leaders and will threaten witnesses. “These leaders are influential to affect the proceedings. It will ship a fallacious message. It is going to have an hostile influence on the society. We urge that court docket mustn’t grant them interim bail now,” Solicitor Normal of India Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI, instructed the court docket.
All of the 4 accused – ministers Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim, Trinamool Congress MLA Madan Mitra and former mayor Sovan Chatterjee – are at the moment beneath home arrest as per the Excessive Courtroom’s order.
The 4 politicians have been arrested final week from their residences in Kolkata.
The arrests sparked large protests, with Mamata Banerjee, who has been made social gathering to the case, tenting exterior the CBI’s Kolkata workplace and daring investigators to arrest her too.
The Trinamool has questioned the timing of those arrests, which got here days after Ms Banerjee’s victory within the April-Could elections that devolved right into a battle with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The social gathering has additionally questioned the choice to not prosecute former leaders Suvendu Adhikari and Mukul Roy who are actually with the BJP.
The Narada case includes a 2014 sting operation by a journalist who posed as a businessman planning to spend money on Bengal. He gave wads of money to seven Trinamool MPs, 4 ministers, one MLA and a police officer as bribe and taped all the trade.
The tapes have been launched simply earlier than the 2016 meeting elections within the state.