Calcutta High Court frowns upon Mamata’s sit-in protest against arrest of Trinamool leaders

The Calcutta High Court has frowned upon West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's sit-in protest at the office of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Kolkata yesterday after two of her senior ministerial colleagues and a key leader of ruling Trinamool Congress were arrested in a five-year-old case of alleged corruption.

 

The court observed that a "confidence of the people in the justice system would be eroded if such incidents are allowed to happen in matters where political leaders are arrested and are to be produced in court," reports our New Delhi correspondent.

 

The two-member bench of the High Court comprising acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice Arijit Banerjee made the observation while staying the bail granted earlier by a trial court to ministers Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee, TMC leader and legislator Madan Mitra and ex-TMC leader Sobhan Chatterjee.

 

"Public trust and confidence in the judicial system is more important. They (people) may feel that it is not the rule of law that prevails but a mob has an upper hand, especially where it is led by the CM in the CBI office and by the Law Minister (of West Bengal) in the court."

 

The bench said it was "not touching the merits of the controversy but the manner in which pressure was sought to be put."

 

Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Madan Mitra and Sobhan Chatterjee were caught on camera accepting money in a sting operation by news portal Narada in 2014. The video tapes were released before assembly polls in 2016.

 

Mamata had staged a sit-in demonstration at the CBI office at Nizam Palace in south Kolkata for six hours yesterday in protest against the arrest of Hakim, Mukherjee and Mitra.