Calcutta High Court on Thursday remanded senior West Bengal Minister Madan Mitra, accused in the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam, to house arrest under “stringent conditions”.
The High Court modified an order passed by an acting additional chief judicial magistrate of Alipore Court granting bail to Mitra without going through the case diary.
Interestingly, the Minister who was undergoing treatment in the State-owned SSKM Hospital for over 10 months was discharged by the board of doctors within 24 hours after Mirta was released on bail on October 31.
Even as there was widespread criticism of him getting discharged from hospital within a day of getting bail, Mitra on Tuesday complained of chest pain and was again admitted to another private hospital within two days of securing bail.
The Division Bench of Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Mir Dara Sikoh on Thursday expressed considerable discontent with the lower court’s order and modified it before sending it to a regular Bench for further hearing. The next hearing had been fixed for November 17 when the court reopened from vacation.
Till then the court directed the accused to remain within the confines of his house under police surveillance and was only allowed to move out either to a hospital on health grounds or to the CBI office if summoned by the investigating agency probing the larger conspiracy angle of the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam under a Supreme Court directive.
“The fact that the sessions judge was in haste to grant bail this case will be heard by a regular bench on November 17, till then he will remain under house arrest,” said Justice Bagchi.
Even though the senior Trinamool leaders including party general secretary had on October 31 termed the incident of bail as a “victory of truth” the High Court wondered whether any change of condition had taken place after the order the same Court passed on August 6 rejecting Mitra’s bail.
On the earlier occasion the High Court had took cognisance of the CBI’s plea that Mitra was a very influential person and that he was in a position of influencing the witnesses before rejecting his bail.
Meanwhile, in a double whammy of sorts for the Trinamool Congress, the CBI on Thursday arrested four top officials of a chit fund company Asda Agrotech which had allegedly used both Mitra and Trinamool MP Shatabdi Roy as its brand ambassadors.