Kolkata (West Bengal): Calcutta High Court grants interim bail to all four TMC leaders - Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Madan Mitra & Sovan Chatterjee in the Narada sting operations case. The grant of bail will be subject to a personal bond of Rs. 2 lakh and two sureties.
The court also ordered that they should give an undertaking stating that they won't speak to media on the case and issues relating to the case.
Of the four arrested, Mukherjee, Chatterjee, and Hakim were former mayors of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC).
The Narada sting operations were conducted by Mathew Samuel to expose high-profile Trinamool Congress leaders and ministers accepting bribes against promises of favours.
Just days after Mamata Banerjee took over as the West Bengal Chief Minister for the third consecutive term, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducting the probe in this matter, had arrested the three high-profile Trinamool Congress MLAs including two members of the West Bengal cabinet.
In 2016, just before the assembly election in West Bengal, the Narada sting operations videos were flashed one after another by Mathew Samuel, which showed 13 then Trinamool Congress leaders and one IPS officer accepting bribes from representatives of a fictitious company against promises of favours.
Among those who were seen in the video included the current national vice president of BJP, Mukul Roy and the current party MLA, and the leader of opposition in the West Bengal assembly, Suvendu Adhikari. Both Roy and Adhikari were with Trinamool then and later they shifted to the saffron camp. CBI started the probe in the matter following a Calcutta High Court order in 2017. Although the West Bengal government moved the Supreme Court of India in the matter, the apex court ordered the probe to continue.
On 17 May, a team of CBI officers accompanied by central armed forces personnel arrived at the residences of Hakim, Mukherjee, Mitra, and Chatterjee, and took them into custody.
