The Supreme Court Friday decided to hear on June 22 the appeals against Calcutta High Court's denial for filing of affidavits by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Law Minister Moloy Ghatak on their role on the day of arrest of four leaders on May 17 by the CBI in connection with the Narada sting tape case.
A vacation bench of justices Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian, meanwhile, requested the high court not to hear the case on Monday but a day after the apex court considers the appeals of the state government and Ghatak against the order.
“List on Tuesday. Mr Solicitor General (Tushar Mehta) has put in appearance. The copy of the special leave petitions (SLPs) be served ion him... In the meantime, we hope that the High Court defers the hearing scheduled on Monday before it to Wednesday,” the bench said in the order.
On June 9, a five-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court, hearing CBI's application for transfer of the Narada sting tape case from the special CBI court to the high court, had said it will decide later on considering the affidavits by the Banerjee and Ghatak on their respective roles on the day of the arrest of four leaders in connection with the case.
Senior advocates Rakesh Dwivedi and Vikas Singh appeared for the law minister and the state government and said it was necessary to bring on record the affidavits of the high court as they deal with the roles of the persons concerned on May 17.
The law minister was attending the cabinet meeting and was not in the court premises at the time of hearing, Dwivedi said, adding that even the CBI officials were not there on the spot as the lawyer for the agency addressed the court virtually.
It has been alleged that the state ruling party leaders played key role in stopping CBI from performing its legal duty after arresting four leaders on May 17 in the case.
“You may not be partly correct. It was stated that he (law minister) was in court,” the bench observed.
“The CBI is an agency which aims to find the truth. They were themselves in CBI office and addressed the court virtually. They do not know as to what happened in the court. The law minister is yet to address court on this,” Dwivedi said.
Singh said that under the rules there is a right to file affidavits and, moreover, CBI filed as many as three affidavits and did not take the permission of the court.
The high court, which on June 9 decided to consider later the affidavits of Banerjee and Ghatak, was urged by the Solicitor General that the affidavits cannot be accepted on the ground of delay as they were filed after the completion of his arguments.
The CBI, which has filed an application seeking transfer of the Narada sting tape case from the special CBI court to the high court, has made the chief minister and the law minister parties in its plea there.
It had claimed that while the Chief Minister had sat on a dharna at the CBI office in Kolkata soon after the arrest of the four accused, Ghatak had been present at the Banshall Court premises during the virtual hearing of the case before the special CBI court there 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 on a 2017 order of the high court.
The five-judge bench, comprising Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and justices I P Mukerji, Harish Tandon, Soumen Sen and Arijit Banerjee, had adjourned the hearing and fixed the case for further hearing on Monday.
The bench had granted interim bail on May 28 to the four accused.
The special CBI court had granted them bail on May 17 itself, but the order was stayed by the high court, 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.
The Narada sting operation was conducted by journalist Mathew Samuel of Narada News, a web portal, 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.
At that time, the four arrested politicians were ministers in the Mamata Banerjee government.
The sting operation was made public ahead of the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal.