Interim bail for Firhad, Subrata, Madan & Sovan

Kolkata: Calcutta High Court’s five-member larger bench granted interim bail to Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Sovan Chatterjee and Madan ...

Kolkata: Calcutta High Court’s five-member larger bench granted interim bail to Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Sovan Chatterjee and Madan Mitra on Friday against Rs 2 personal bond in the Narada sting operation case. The four leaders were under house arrest since last Friday following a High Court Division Bench order.

“Against two lakh personal bonds the leaders are granted bail but they are not allowed to speak in front of the media regarding the case,” TMC MP and advocate Kalyan Banerjee said.

Advocate Manishankar Chatterjee, TMC minister Subrata Mukherjee’s lawyer, said that the Solicitor General, Tushar Mehta, on Friday had urged the larger bench that if bail is granted then the leaders might tamper with the witnesses and evidence.
“Justice Indraprasanna Mukherjee informed the solicitor general that the case is going on from 2017 and if they had to resort to unscrupulous means then they would have done so by now. Also in this trying time they need to run the administration,” said Manishankar. The acting Justice Rakesh Bindal had assured the solicitor general that the case will not take a back seat, he added.
Earlier due to differences in opinion between Justice Arijit Bandhopadhyay and acting justice Rakesh Bindal, the four political leaders were sent to house arrest though the two TMC ministers, Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee, were allowed to take part in administrative work virtually.
On May 25 a day after moving the Supreme Court, the CBI had to withdraw the application after the apex court had instructed the CBI to continue with the Calcutta High Court.
On May 17 TMC ministers Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee, TMC MLA Madan Mitra and former mayor Sovan Chatterjee were arrested by the CBI from their residence. Despite getting bail from the lower court the CBI approached the Calcutta High Court which had then stayed the bail and sent the leaders to judicial custody and then later to house arrest.