CBI may shift Saradha case to other state

Tribune News Service & PTI

Kolkata, December 15

The Special Crime Branch of the CBI, which is probing the Saradha scam, might consider shifting of the case to some other state in view of the huge crowds of supporters during production of accused in courts.

“After seeing the crowd during the production of West Bengal Transport Minister Madan Mitra at Alipore court on Saturday, we may consider shifting of the case to some other state,” a CBI source said.

The agency has written to the West Bengal Government for arranging adequate security arrangements at the CBI office in the Salt Lake and in the court where Mitra would be produced again tomorrow.

The CBI alleged that on Saturday their lawyer could not properly plead in the court following protests and vandalism by a group of TMC workers. Even Judicial Magistrate Kingshuk Sadhu Khan also could not remain in the court room for long and left after announcing the order of remanding Mitra in the CBI custody till December 16.

Save Democracy, a social welfare organisation which includes several legal luminaries and other eminent persons, also expressed concern at the TMC’s vandalism. Former Supreme Court Judge Asok Ganguly demanded that the Calcutta High Court should ensure protection of judges and lawyers in the lower courts and also start suo moto a defamation case against the TMC and the Chief Minister for inciting hooligans against the CBI. Ganguly also personally requested Chief Justice Monjula Chella in this regard.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee warned the Modi government and the BJP against “using the CBI as a tool to harass and arrest innocent TMC ministers and the leader in the scam”. She announced her party’s decision of strengthening and widening massive protests and agitation everywhere in the country, including in Delhi, against the BJP.

TMC workers today staged protests at many places. TMC MPs also raised the issue in Parliament and Saugata Roy demanded that the CBI should be brought under the Lokayukta instead of the PMO.

CBI officials said today they interrogated the minister in the presence of two senior SEBI officials and the arrested East Bengal club official Nitu Sarker. In the interrogation, the new names of many political leaders and other persons came to their notice. The CBI has written to the management of some nationalised banks for handing to them the details of the accounts of Mitra and other family members.