As West Bengal ministers prepare to take oath as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s cabinet ministers, Governor Jagdeep Dhankar has given the CBI permission to prosecute erstwhile Trinamool Congress leaders, Firhad Hakim, Madan Mitra, Subrata Mukherjee, and former TMC and BJP leader Sovan Chatterjee in the Narada tapes scandal.
Governor accorded sanction for prosecution… being the appointing authority of ministers @MamataOfficial under article 164 and thus competent authority,” the Governor tweeted on Sunday evening.
A statement issued by Raj Bhavan said, Governor of West Bengal Jagdeep Dhankar accorded sanction for prosecution in respect of Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Madan Mitra and Sovan Chatterjee, for the reason that all of them at the relevant time of commission of crime were holding the position of ministers in the government of West Bengal.
The sanction of the prosecution came less than 24 hours before two of the four TMC leaders, Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim, now facing CBI prosecution, are to be sworn in as ministers in Banerjee’s cabinet.
While Hakim, Mukherjee, and Mitra won the recent elections, Chatterjee has severed ties with both the TMC and the BJP, which he had joined in 2019. The Central Bureau of Investigation has claimed that all four were caught accepting bribes on camera which was released ahead of the 2016 Assembly polls. They were allegedly filmed in 2014, when all four were ministers.
In January, the CBI had sought sanction from the Governor to prosecute the four leaders in the case. Three of these leaders were ministers in the state cabinet at the time, while Madan Mitra was Sports and Transport minister between 2011 and 2015.
In March 2017, the Calcutta High Court ordered a CBI probe in the case. According to a statement by Raj Bhavan, the Governor is the competent authority to accord sanction in terms of law as he happens to be the appointing authority for such ministers in terms of Article 164 of the Constitution.