A day after Trinamool Congress heavyweight and party’s Birbhum district president Anubrata Mondal was discharged from the State-run SSKM Hospital, the Central Bureau of Investigation ( CBI) on Saturday issued notice to him to appear before the agency. Mr. Mondal has been asked to appear in a connection with a cattle smuggling case.
Earlier in the day, the agency had issued summons to the Trinamool leader to appear at the agency headquarters in Kolkata at 5.30 pm. Later, a fresh notice was issued asking him to appear before the agency’s Kolkata office at 11 a.m. on Sunday.
Mr. Mondal was discharged from SSKM hospital after 17 days on Friday evening.
So far, the agency has issued half a dozen summons to the Trinamool in connection with the case. Summons are being issued to the leader under Section 160 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, as per which a police officer investigating the case has the power to require attendance of witnesses of a case.
Cattle smuggling continues to be an issue where cattle from different states in the country is smuggled to Bangladesh through the porous West Bengal border. The CBI has been investigating the cattle smuggling case since 2018 and the suspects in the case not only involve individuals alleged to have been involve in cattle smuggling but also officers of the State government and the Border Security Force ( BSF)
On April 6, Mr. Mondal was summoned by the CBI in the same case. Instead of appearing before the agency, Mr Mondal was hospitalised . According to the 62- year-old Trinamool leader, he wanted to appear before the agency but felt unwell on the way and was admitted to SSKM Hospital.
He had earlier approached the Calcutta High Court demanding a relief from appearing before the CBI in the case. “Mere issuance of notice under Section 160 of the Cr.P.C. does not offend the fundamental right enshrined under Article 21,” a Division Bench of Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj had said.
