The Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders—Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Madan Mitra and Sovan Chatterjee—have been placed under house arrest by the Calcutta High Court in the Narada bribery case.
Abhishek Manu Singhvi, the counsel for TMC leaders, had sought a stay on the house arrest order.
The day wasn’t without drama as Justice Arijit Banerjee of the Calcutta High Court bench had agreed to grant interim bail to the arrested TMC leaders. However, the acting chief justice Rajesh Bindal ordered house arrest and said the matter be referred to a larger bench for interim bail.
CBI, meanwhile, has sought transfer of the case out of Kolkata over the “extraordinary” pressure being exerted on them.
It might be recalled that chief minister Mamata Banerjee, and thousands of her supporters, had laid siege to the office of CBI in the city. The CBI had expressed its helplessness in producing the four accused in court owing to mob outside its office complex.
Three of the four arrested leaders — Madan Mitra, Subrata Mukherjee and Sovan Chatterjee — had complained of illness a day after the arrest and were admitted to a hospital in Kolkata.
