Kolkata: Calcutta High Court slapped West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee with a fine of Rs 5000 for filing late affidavit in Narada bribery case.
Allowing to file the applications over Narada bribery case, five-Judge Bench comprising of Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal, and Justices IP Mukherjee, Harish Tandon, Soumen Sen and Arijit Banerjee said that the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and state law minister Malay Ghatak will have to pay a fine of rupees 5000 for being late.
The five-judge bench had also granted the CBI 10 days time to file their counter affidavit.
Notably, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had purposely delayed in filing the affidavit.
Countering the Solicitor General, Justice Soumen Sen said that just on the basis of CBI’s claim the Calcutta High Court cannot pronounce their verdict.
However, the hearing of the Narada bribery scam case got further deferred to July 15.
It can be recalled that the CBI had earlier alleged that since the TMC government should be made party of the scam investigation as the TMC supremo had agitated in front from CBI office following the arrest of heavyweight TMC leaders Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Madan Mitra and former TMC minister Sovan Chatterjee.
Following the CBIs claim, Mamata Banerjee and her lawyer and TMC leader Malay Ghatak had time and again tried to file an affidavit to Calcutta High Court for not making them a party to the case as they didn’t agitate in front of the CBI office.
Failing to file the affidavit, acting Justice Rajesh Bindal said that the investigation is halfway done when the TMC supremo moved the apex court to file the affidavit, but after the apex court refusal the same was filed in HC on June 28.
