Bengal min Firhad Hakim unfazed by CBI probe after Guv's consent; hopes for clean chit

Unfazed by the Bengal governor's consent to probe the newly sworn-in cabinet minister Firhad Hakim in the Narada case, he said that he believed the judiciary will give him a clean chit, adding that it was good that the matter was in court. Governor Jagdeep Dhankar sanctioned the prosecution of TMC leaders Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Madan Mitra and Sovan Chatterjee - erstwhile ministers in the purported Narada sting tapes, by the CBI. The Bengal governor's sanction for the prosecution came at the request of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which is probing the Narada sting tapes that came to light before the West Bengal Assembly elections in 2016 and sanctioned by the Calcutta High Court in 2017.

Narada sting: Firhad Hakim welcomes CBI probe

All four above-mentioned TMC leaders were ministers in the Mamata Banerjee cabinet when the tapes were allegedly made in 2014. Hakim, Mukherjee and Mitra have been re-elected as TMC MLAs in the just-concluded assembly elections, while Chatterjee, who left the TMC to join the BJP, has severed links with both the camps. The statement said that the sanction for prosecution of the four leaders was accorded by Dhankhar "after the CBI had made a request and made available entire documentation relevant to the case to the honourable governor and he invoked his powers under Article 163 and 164 of the Constitution, being the competent authority to accord such sanction".

What is the Narada probe?

According to reports, Narada news portal chief Mathew Samuel had contacted the then deputy mayor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and IPS officer S. M. H. Mirza through local contacts in 2016. Reports add that Mirza then facilitated in establishing Samuel's contact with several top-ranking Trinamool officials like - Madan Mitra, Mukul Roy, Saugata Roy, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Prasun Bannerjee, Subrata Mukherjee and Iqbal Ahmed to name a few. Ahead of the 2016 West Bengal assembly polls, Samuel had posed as a businessman of Impex Consultancy Solutions floated by Samuel himself to conduct a sting operation. Samuel while interacting with Mukul Roy, aides of Trinamool's Abhishek Banerjee had reportedly caught them on camera accepting bribes for illicit favours. Mirza was seen accepting Rs 5 lakh in cash from a businessman in one of the footages and has claimed that he was receiving the cash on Roy's instructions. CBI has arrested senior IPS officer SMH Mirza and questioned erstwhile TMC minister Mukul Roy too in connection to the case.