In a significant move the Kolkata Police on Wednesday (May 19) filed an FIR against the personnel of the Central Bureau of Investigation under Section 51 (B) of the Disaster Management Act at the Gariahat Police Station for violation of the restrictions imposed during the corona virus pandemic. The CBI sleuths were charged with violating the Act while going to arrest one of the leaders named in the Narada Bribery case.
This is not the first time that the Kolkata Police and the central agency have come face to face in West Bengal.
On the other hand, the CBI filed a transfer petition to move the Narada Bribery case out of West Bengal. It also made chief minister Mamata Banerjee, law minister Moloy Ghatak, and Trinamool Congress MP and lawyer, Kalyan Banerjee, a party to the case.
On Wednesday the two-hour long hearing in Calcutta High Court remained inconclusive and would continue on Thursday. The hearing was made before a division bench of acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice Arijit Banerjee. Senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi represented the four arrested leaders while the Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta appeared for the CBI.
Singhvi, while pleading the case, raised question on the manner in which the stay order on the bail was granted to the four accused on the midnight of Monday-Tuesday, stating that no court could give an order cancelling bail without notice to the accused.
Justice Bindal raised questions about the presence of chief minister Mamata Banerjee for six hours at the CBI office. Singhvi responded that it was a ‘Gandhian protest’. Mehta said the developments on Monday were attempts to ‘frustrate justice’.
Meanwhile, three of the four who were arrested on the midnight have been shifted to Kolkata’s SSKM Hospital. Those hospitalized are Subrata Mukherjee, minister, Madan Mitra, MLA and Sovan Chatterjee, former mayor of Calcutta Municipal Corporation.
