Kolkata: On Monday, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested TWest Bengal ministers Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim, TMC MLA Madan Mitra, and former Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee at its Kolkata office in connection with the Narada bribery case.
West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar had recently sanctioned prosecution against Hakim and other senior leaders of the TMC, including Mitra and Mukherjee.
What is the Narada case?
Back in 2014, Mathew Samuel conducted a sting operation for Tehelka news magazine which was published on a private news website Narada News months before the 2016 West Bengal Assembly elections. Samuel is the former managing editor of Tehelka.
Samuel went undercover as a high official of the fictitious Chennai-based firm Impex Consultancy Solutions. He offered cash as a bribe to 12 TMC leaders including 7 MPs, 4 ministers and 1 MLA and a police officer, and taped the operation. He and his colleague captured 52 hours of footage in which prominent politicians resembling Mukul Roy, Saugata Roy, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Prasun Bannerjee, Suvendu Adhikari and Sultan Ahmad, and state ministers Madan Mitra, Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim, and Iqbal Ahmed were seen accepting alleged bribes in the form of wads of cash in exchange for doing unofficial favours for Impex Consultancy Solutions floated by Samuel himself.
Aside from this, IPS HMS Mirza who has been suspended was also seen taking cash from Samuel. Former TMC leader Shanku Deb Panda was also seen asking for shares in Samuel’s fictitious company in exchange for promised favours, he has now joined BJP.
National vice-president of BJP, Mukul Roy was not seen accepting cash in the footage but he was seen asking Samuel to visit his party office with the cash. Former TMC leader, Suvendu Adhikari joined BJP right before the Assembly Election 2021. Sovan Chatterjee had joined the BJP in 2019 but he quit in 2021.
Aftermath of the footage
After the court raised doubts regarding the impartiality of the WB Police, CBI was asked to probe, the footage was certified as authentic by the Central Forensic Laboratory. The purported video footage of the sting operation surfaced before the 2016 Assembly polls. The CBI lodged an FIR in April 2017 following a court order, naming 13 TMC leaders and have interrogated many of them. The purported footage was also sent for forensic examination.
The West Bengal government booked Samuel under multiple sections of the IPC 469 (forgery to harm reputation), 500 (defamation), 120(B) (criminal conspiracy) etc. On August 5, 2016, the High Court stayed the state probe for ad infinitum, observing that the police cannot run a concurrent investigation along with a court-monitored probe. The court also directed the CBI to register an FIR against those who were involved in the case, if required.
The Enforcement Directorate is also running a parallel investigation. In 2020, the ED sent fresh notices to a Trinamool Congress' Minister and several Lok Sabha members in West Bengal, apart from a suspended police officer. According to sources, the Trinamool leaders were asked to furnish details about their properties and bank statements within a specific deadline, in regard to the investigations into the money laundering aspect of the case.