Angry retorts by TMC leaders and violent protests by celebration supporters turned commonplace in West Bengal on Monday, after two state ministers amongst others had been held in the Narada case, with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee “seeking her arrest” when requested to depart the CBI workplace right here, officers stated. Chaos ensued exterior the probe company’s workplace at Nizam Place, as a whole bunch of celebration supporters defied the continued lockdown, elevating slogans towards the BJP-led NDA authorities, hurling stones and bricks at safety personnel in protest towards the arrests.
The agitators additionally burnt tyres and blocked roads in a number of different elements of the state, together with Hooghly, North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas districts. The CBI on Monday morning arrested state ministers Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, TMC MLA Madan Mitra in addition to former minister Sovan Chatterjee in reference to the Narada sting case in which politicians had been purportedly caught taking cash on digital camera.
Banerjee, who arrived on the CBI workplace round 11 am, “told our officers that they have to arrest her if they want her to leave Nizam Palace,” sources in the central probe company stated. The sources stated Banerjee’s actions are akin to interference in the probe handed over to the company by the Calcutta High Court.
Apart from the CM, Chatterjee’s estranged spouse Ratna, who’s now an MLA from Behala Purba, Hakim’s daughter and different senior leaders of the Trinamool Congress additionally reached the CBI workplace. Reacting to the arrests, TMC spokesman Kunal Ghosh claimed that the CBI motion was a vengeful act and a fallout of the BJP’s loss in the West Bengal meeting elections.
“The BJP is still not able to accept defeat in the polls after having made an all-out attempt to win… This is a reprehensible act. “When the state is combating the Covid scenario, they’re making an attempt to create disturbances in such a way,” he stated.
The ruling party MP Sougata Roy said this was a “vengeful and vindictive” decision by the central government. “The CBI motion is politically motivated,” said TMC MLA Tapas Roy.
West Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee dubbed the arrests as illegal, contending that the CBI move on the basis of the governor’s sanction was unlawful. “I’ve not acquired any letter from the CBI nor has anyone sought any permission from me as per the protocol,” he said.
Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar had recently granted sanction to prosecute all the four leaders, following which the probe agency finalised its charge-sheet and moved to arrest them. “I have no idea for what unknown purpose they went to the governor and sought his sanction. The chair of the speaker was not vacant at the moment, I used to be very a lot in workplace.
“This sanction is absolutely illegal and arresting anyone on the basis of this sanction is also illegal,” Banerjee claimed. Taking word of the widespread protests throughout the state, Dhankhar urged the CM to include the “explosive situation” and requested her to weigh the “repercussions of such lawlessness and failure of constitutional mechanism”.
Another senior TMC chief Abhishek Banerjee urged celebration staff to comply with the regulation and chorus from violating the lockdown norms. Commenting on the arrests, Bishwajit Bhattacharyya, former Additional Solicitor General of India, stated one might impute a malafide motive aside from authorized to the event.
“While not going into the technicalities, one would assume that a minister in a state government would obviously present himself for any questioning by the arms of law. “Since this can be a four-year-old case with the proof on tape, there isn’t any query of tampering with it. Under these circumstances and given the Supreme Court observations on arrests, one fails to know why these ministers are being arrested,” Bhattacharyya said.
Senior advocate Arunava Ghosh said the Assembly Speaker has no authority to sanction arrests under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Hakim, Mukherjee and Mitra were re-elected as MLAs in the recently concluded West Bengal assembly polls, while Chatterjee, who left the TMC to join the BJP, has severed links with both parties.
The Narada tapes were made public just before the 2016 assembly elections in the state.
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