Narada case: ED names Bengal Minister Firhad Hakim, 3 other TMC leaders in chargesheet
A special court ordered issuance of summons to the leaders and the appearance of the accused on November 16.
FollowThe Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday filed a chargesheet in West Bengal's famous Narada sting scam and submitted the names of Bengal ministers Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Trinamool Congress MLA Madan Mitra and former Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee in a special court.
The four accused were arrested on May 17 by the CBI which is investigating the Narada sting tape case on a 2017 order of the High Court. A special court ordered issuance of summons to the leaders and the appearance of the accused on November 16.
The chargesheet filed before a special PMLA court in Kolkata asks for awarding maximum punishment to the accused for alleged money laundering and confiscated the bribe money accepted by the accused.
According to the ED, it was observed that the accused, in their capacity as ministers and public servants allegedly accepted bribes to favour a person who was posing as a representative of a company.
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On May 17, Ministers Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim, Trinamool Congress MLA Madan Mitra and former mayor of Kolkata Sovan Chatterjee were arrested by the CBI, which is investigating the Narada sting tape case.
The Special CBI court on May 17 had granted them bail, however, the High Court had stayed the order, which remanded them to judicial custody. They had been placed under house arrest on May 21 by the High Court, modifying its earlier order of stay on the bail.
Journalist Mathew Samuel of Narada News, a web portal, had conducted a Narada sting operation in 2014 wherein some people resembling TMC ministers, MPs and MLAs were seen receiving money from representatives of a fictitious company in lieu of favours.
The four arrested politicians were ministers in the Mamata Banerjee government at that time. Ahead of the 2016 Assembly elections in West Bengal, the sting operation was made public.
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