Four West Bengal leaders, including two Ministers, who were arrested by the CBI in the Narada case, were granted interim bail by a five-judge Bench of the Calcutta High Court on Friday on a personal bond of ₹2 lakh each.
One of the conditions of the bail granted by the Bench of Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justices I.P. Mukerji, Harish Tandon, Soumen Sen and Arjit Banerjee included that the accused persons shall not “give any press interview or make any public comments in connection with the cases pending in this court or in the trial court, pertaining to the alleged offence concerning themselves or any other co-accused.”
“The aforesaid accused persons shall make themselves available for interrogation in the course of further investigation, if any, of the alleged offence, as and when required by the CBI. Considering the lockdown imposed in the State of West Bengal, the interrogation may be carried out by virtual mode,” the order said.
It also specified that the accused shall not tamper with the evidence or attempt to intimidate or influence the witnesses.
The CBI arrested Ministers Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee, MLA Madan Mitra and former Minister Sovan Chatterjee on May 17 and they were granted bail by a Special CBI court the very same day. But it was stayed by a Division Bench of the High Court.
The court later placed them under house arrest and constituted the five-judge Bench.
In the order, the Bench said the accused shall file an undertaking by May 31 before the Registrar General of this court as well as the CBI court to comply with the bail conditions.
The matter will come up for hearing on May 31.
