A CBI petition filed at the Calcutta High Court that seeks the transfer of the Narada sting tape case from the state has made West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Law Minister Moloy Ghatak a party to it.
The matter will be heard by a division bench presided by Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal at 2 pm on Wednesday.
The bench will also hear petitions by ministers Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim, TMC MLA Madan Mitra and former Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee for recall of its order staying the bail granted by a CBI court in connection with their arrest in the case, on Monday.
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Besides Banerjee and Ghatak, the probe agency has also made Trinamool Congress MP and lawyer Kalyan Banerjee a party in its petition before the high court.
Representing the CBI, Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta had on Monday evening told the division bench of Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice Arijit Banerjee that an extraordinary situation had evolved, with the chief minister of the state sitting on a dharna outside the office of the investigating agency here.
The CBI also claimed that the law minister of West Bengal was present in court, where the accused were to be presented, along with a mob.
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The probe agency said that a number of followers of the arrested political leaders gheraoed the CBI office in Nizam Palace area, and did not allow its officers to move out to enable them to produce the accused in court.
They were produced before the special CBI court through the virtual mode on Monday.
What is the Narada case?
The case pertains to the ‘Narada tapes’ sting operation shot in 2014 by Narada news portal, purportedly showing TMC leaders accepting bribes on camera. The sting was conducted over a period of two years and was supposed to be published in Tehelka magazine. Journalist Matthew Samuel, who later quit Tehelka, and launched his own TV channel in West Bengal posed as a businessman planning to invest in West Bengal, offered cash to twelve TMC leaders including seven MPs, four ministers and one MLA and a police officer as bribe and taped the operation.
(With PTI inputs.)
