What is the Narada bribery case in which 4 TMC leaders were arrested?

May 18: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday arrested ministers Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee, TMC MLA Madan Mitra and former Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chattopadhyay in the Narada bribery case.

It pertains to a 2014 sting operation conducted by Narada News founder Mathew Samuel and published ahead of the 2016 Assembly elections. The footage showed many ministers and TMC MPs accepting cash in return for favours. All of the 4 TMC leaders arrested on Monday were state ministers when the Narada sting operation purportedly showed them taking money. The Calcutta High Court had ordered a CBI probe into the sting operation in March 2017.

Conducted in 2014 for the news magazine Tehelka, it was published on a private news website Narada News months before the 2016 West Bengal Assembly elections. In the 52-hour footage photographed by Samuel and his colleague Angel Abraham, then TMC MPs Mukul Roy, Sougata Roy, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Prasun Bannerjee, Suvendu Adhikari, Aparupa Poddar and Sultan Ahmad (he died in 2017), 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 extending unofficial favours for Impex Consultancy Solutions, which was floated by Samuel himself.

All four leaders have been arrested under sections 120b of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections 7 and 13(1)(a) 13(1)(b) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. “Why isn’t Mukul Roy, vice president of BJP, being arrested? He was also seen in the Narada sting operation video saying that the money be given to a IPS officer. The BJP has become vindictive just because they can’t accept their defeat in the assembly polls,” said TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh. “Law is taking its own course. BJP has nothing to do with this. We are not going to comment as BJP is not a CBI’s spokesperson,” countered BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharjee.

Meanwhile, TMC workers and supporters staged protests at many places across the state. Following the arrest, chief minister Mamata Banerjee rushed to the CBI’s office at Nizam Palace in south Kolkata. Mamata told the CBI officials that she should also be arrested. Later on, they were granted bail by the CBI court. However, after a few hours, the bail granted to West Bengal ministers Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee, TMC MLA Madan Mitra, and former Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chattopadhyay, who were arrested by CBI in the Narada bribery case, was stayed by the Calcutta High Court late on Monday evening. The four TMC leaders will now be in jail custody till the next hearing in the case on Wednesday.