The Calcutta High Court on Friday (May 21) ordered that the four accused in the Narada Bribery case be kept under house arrest.
The court came to this ruling after the two-member bench was divided on the issue of granting of bail. While the acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal rejected the bail plea of all the four accused, including two ministers in the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, the other member of the bench Justice Arijit Banerjee ruled in favour of granting interim bail. The two judges, however, agreed that the four accused be shifted from Presidency Jail and put under house arrest.
While the two ministers Firhad Hakeem and Subrata Mukherjee have been allowed to function as ministers through video conferencing the Trinamool Congress MLA Madan Mitra and the former mayor of Calcutta Municipal Corporation Sovan Chatterjee would remain under house arrest.
The matter has been referred to the larger bench. On the other hand, the CBI is planning to move the Supreme Court.
As reported earlier the High Court on the midnight of May 17-18 sent all the four to jail after staying the order of the CBI special judge Anupam Mukherjee early in the day.
Meanwhile, chief minister Mamata Banerjee is now most likely to contest by-election from her old Bhawanipore seat after the sitting MLA and state’s agriculture minister, 80 year old Sobhandeb Chatterjee on Friday submitted his resignation from the Assembly to the Speaker Biman Banerjee to leave the seat for her.
By-polls will also be held in Dinhata and Santipur Assembly seats following the resignation by two newly elected BJP legislators. As Nisith Pramanik and Jaganath Sarkar both are MPs, they gave up their Assembly seats.
