The Mamata Banerjee Government is planning to contest the Narada video case on the ground that “accepting cash does not make a person guilty until Mens Rea or guilty mind of the accused is proved.”
Though senior counsel and Trinamool MP Kalyan Banerjee evaded comment “on an issue which is subjudice” in Calcutta High Court, Bengal Advocate General put forward the “Mens Rea” theory even as a number of Trinamool leaders said it would be difficult to make out a case against the ruling party politicians.
Copies of the forensic reports accessed by the media earlier confirmed the genuineness of the Narada video tapes showing a host of Trinamool Ministers and MPs accepting wads of notes in lieu of future promises to a journalist faking as a prospective investor.
Acting on a PIl the High Court has sent the copies of video tapes for forensic test to Chandigarh-based central forensic laboratory. The CFSl report subsequently confirmed that the “tapes of the sting operation by Narada News named ‘X’ files” done by Narada chief Mathew Samuels were “genuine and have not been tampered with.”
The CFSl said it could open only 47 out of 73 files sent to for examination as it did not have the requisite software support for opening the remaining files. Hence the genuineness of the tapes showing senior Minister Firhad Hakim and a former State Trinamool students wings chief Shankudeb Panda were not confirmed.
The CFSl however established the genuineness of other tapes featuring Ministers Subroto Mukherjee, Suvendu Adhikary (a former MP), Sultan Ahmed Prasun Banerjee, Kakoli Ghoshdastidar, Sougato Roy, (all MPs) and Iqbal Ahmed an MlA and Deputy Mayor of Kolkata.
The report on the tapes involving Hakim, Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee and Panda were inconclusive.
Samuels soon reacted saying “the truth always prevails I have been saying from the day one that the tapes are genuine and have not been tampered or edited. I welcome the decision.” Incidentally the Narada CEO was arrested for a while and then released at Delhi Airport following a “lookout notice” issued by the Kolkata Police that is investigating the case upon Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s order that many an Opposition leaders called an act of vendetta.
The Calcutta High Court had earlier stayed all parallel investigation proceedings
by the police till it was
being inquired into the by the court itself.
Curiously the Trinamool leaders earlier had denied having taken money when the tapes were released just before the Bengal Assembly elections. later some of them said the cash were taken for electoral purposes while others said they were taken in the form of donation to the party fund.
The lawyers however wondered as to why no receipt was given against the cash received or why those receipts were not shown in the party’s income tax returns.