In a temporary respite for the Narada News CEO Mathew Samuels, the Calcutta High Court on Friday ordered an interim stay on “parallel investigations” being conducted by the Kolkata Police in the Narada video case.
Expressing its dissatisfaction at the way the police were investigating, a case which was already being heard by it, the Division Bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur issued an order giving interim stay to a parallel investigation.
The case would again be heard on August 18. Earlier the lawyers of Samuels drew the attention of the Court wondering as to how a case which was already under the High Court’s scrutiny could be investigated by the police.
Samuels had in his petition expressed fears that the Police was hatching plans to arrest him on the pretext of investigating the case.
The Kolkata Police had earlier issued summons to him after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ordered a probe into the case. When Samuels communicated to the police saying he had submitted all the relevant hardware including the mobile phone and the laptop which were used to shoot the video, the cops procured an order from a lower Court getting directions for the Narada CEO to appear before the police.
In a major embarrassment for the Trinamool Congress Government, a dozen of its senior leaders including Ministers and MPs were caught accepting wads of notes from a journalist faking as a prospective investor in the State in lieu of future favours.
Among those shown in the video were Ministers-Firhad Hakim, Subroto Mukherjee, Suvendu Adhikary (then an MP), Sovan Chatterjee, MPs Sougato Roy, Sultan Ahmed and others.