Narada case: CBI summons TMC ministers, leaders

The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday issued summons to several Trinamool Congress ministers and leaders in the Narada sting operation case, in which persons resembling members of the ruling party were seen accepting money.

Sources said TMC minister Subrata Mukherjee, sitting MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and former Kolkata mayor and now Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sovan Chatterjee were among the ten who had been summoned by the agency in connection with the case.

The probe agency has also approached Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, seeking sanction to prosecute Ghosh Dastidar, two other MPs -- Saugata Roy and Prasun Banerjee -- and state minister and former parliamentarian of the party, Suvendu Adhikari, in the case, officials said.

The CBI would conduct voice sample tests to ascertain the truth of the video, which had surfaced in 2016 ahead of the West Bengal assembly polls, they said.

If the sanction is accorded, the four leaders might be named in the charge sheet.

Samuel Mathew, the editor of Narada News, had provided recordings purportedly showing alleged payments received by politicians and senior bureaucrats of the Bengal government.

In the sting operation, claimed to have been carried out in 2014, some persons resembling senior TMC leaders are seen accepting money from the representatives of a fictitious company in return for favours.

The CBI had subsequently booked 12 top TMC leaders, including MPs and West Bengal ministers, and an IPS officer.

A first information report was lodged for alleged criminal conspiracy under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act dealing with bribery and criminal misconduct.

The maximum sentence for these crimes ranges from five to seven years of imprisonment.

On Wednesday, BJP leader Mukul Roy and Trinamool Congress MP K D Singh were also examined by the CBI in the case, sources had said.

Roy, however, said he was given notice under 160 Code of Criminal Procedure to appear as a witness in the Saradha chitfund case.

No questions pertaining to Narada were put to him, he claimed.