Kolkata: Close on the heels of it speaking permission from Lok Sabha speaker to prosecute three current and one former MP of Trinamool Congress (TMC), the CBI issued Thursday 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 BJP leader Sovan Chatterjee were among the 10 who had been summoned by the agency in connection with the case.
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, sources said.
Samuel Mathew, the editor of Narada News, had provided recordings purportedly showing alleged payments received by politicians and senior bureaucrats of the West 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.
An FIR 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.
BJP leader Mukul Roy and TMC MP KD Singh were also questioned by the CBI in the case, sources had said. Mukul Roy, however, said he was given notice under 160 CrPC to appear as a witness in the Saradha chit fund case. No questions pertaining to Narada were put to him, he claimed.
PTI
