The Enforcement Directorate has named two sitting West Bengal ministers - Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee along with former minister Madan Mitra, former Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee and IPS officer SMH Mirza - in its chargesheet in the Narada sting operation case.
Trinamool ministers Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim, MLA Madan Mitra and former mayor of Kolkata Sovan Chatterjee were arrested on May 17 by the CBI which is investigating the Narada sting tape case on a 2017 order of the High Court. According to the ED, it was observed that the accused, despite being ministers and public servants, accepted bribes in lieu of favoring a company (fictitious). Money laundering was done to convert this bribe amount into white money.
On May 17 itself, the Special CBI court 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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