The High Court on Thursday deferred hearing the bail application of former minister and CPI(M) veteran Badal Choudhury, who is one of the ten accused in a ₹600 core financial scam in PWD. Justice Arindom Lodh fixed October 30 as the date for the next hearing and directed the police to immediately submit the case diary.
Lawyers representing Mr. Choudhury made a plea for an urgent hearing for the bail, considering his ‘fragile health’ but the court did not agree.
Mr. Choudhury is undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Agartala.
Doctors confirmed that the former PWD Minister had some health complications and had suffered a mild stroke after he went into hiding to evade arrest. Mr. Choudhury, accompanied by two unidentified women, had arrived in the hospital on the night of October 22. Police officials who were on a look out for the 69-year-old leader had shown him as arrested in the hospital same night.
The Tripura government had placed nine police men, including the west Tripura district superintendent of police, under suspension for dereliction of duty for their failure to track down Badal Choudhury.
Meanwhile a special court on Thursday issued an arrest warrant against the State’s former Chief Secretary Y.P. Singh, who was also the Principle Secretary at the time of the occurrence of the financial scam in 2008.
Another prominent accused, former PWD Chief Engineer Sunil Bhowmik was arrested and admitted in a government hospital over some health issues.
