CBI arrests Bengal ministers Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee in Narada sting case

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested Bengal ministers Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee, MLA Madan Mitra and former minister Sovan Chatterjee in connection with the Narada sting operation. They were taken to the CBI office early on Monday morning. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee arrived at the CBI office, reportedly to express solidarity with her partymen.

West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, on a request by the CBI, had sanctioned the prosecution of the four detained, all of them ministers during the time of the alleged commission of a crime that came to light in the purported Narada sting tapes. All four were ministers in the Mamata Banerjee cabinet when the tapes were allegedly made in 2014.

Hakim, Mukherjee and Mitra have been re-elected as TMC MLAs in the just-concluded assembly elections, while Chatterjee, who left the TMC to join the BJP, has severed links with both the camps.

The statement said that the sanction for prosecution of the four leaders was accorded by Dhankhar "after the CBI had made a request and made available entire documentation relevant to the case to the honourable governor and he invoked his powers under Article 163 and 164 of the Constitution, being the competent authority to accord such sanction".

The Narada sting tapes, made public before the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal, were claimed to have been shot in 2014, wherein people resembling TMC ministers, MPs and MLAs were allegedly seen receiving money from representatives of a fictitious company in lieu of promised favours.