Irked by the repeated “nonappearance” of the two accused, the state transport minister Subhendu Adhikary and former mayor turned-BJP leader Sovan Chatterjee, against whom the summons were issued by the CBI earlier, seeking their presence to record their voice samples, the Central agency today issued fresh summons asking them to appear before the agency on Wednesday.
The Narada news CEO Mathew Samuel , who was interrogated in Delhi by the agency recently too got the summons to appear at its Nizam Palace office on that day. A source close to the CBI said the issuance of fresh summons to the duo pertained to the fact of their continued “non-availablity”. While the agency is learnt to have sought the Lok Sabha speaker’s nod for prosecution of Mr Adhikary since he was the parliamentarian of the ruling party of the state when the Narada sting was conducted.
The notice to Mr Chatterjee was for his continued noncompliance of its earlier summon. Incidentally, Mr Adhikary is one of the three MPs- Saugata Roy, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar besides him the agency had sought the Lok Sabha Mr Om Birla’s nod to prosecute them in the Narada case. The source claimed that the issuance of notice to Mr Samuel to depose before the agency at its Nizam Palace office on Wednesday along with Mr Adhikary and Mr Chatterjee was to interrogate the duo sitting face to face with him.
The agency which is on an overdrive to conclude the probe in the Narada pay-off scam and file chargesheet against the 13 accused against whom the FIR had been lodged by the agency had summoned 10 accused out of the 13 to record their voice samples. The CBI had already recorded voice samples of MPs Prasun Banerjee, Saugata Roy, former minister Madan Mitra, state panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee. State urban development minister and mayor Firhad hakim former Trinamul Congress turned BJP leader Mukul Roy were kept out of the lists of accused whose names had figured in the FIR.
Sovan Chatterjee and Subhendu Adhikry both were seen in the sting video conducted by the Mr Samuel taking wads of cash. While the former was seen taking the cash under the cover of a towel in the presence of his personal assistant ( P.A) at his ante chamber at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC,) where the CBI team had conducted reconstruction in the presence of the former mayor and his P.A.