The Trinamul Congress today moved a breach of privilege motion against two officers of central probe agencies – Enforcement Directorate and Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with the Narada case for degrading the dignity of the Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee.
Introducing the motion, Tapas Roy of the Trinamul Congress, also the deputy chief whip of his party, said that the House had not taken it lightly the way two officers of the central agencies, Satyendranath Singh and Rathindra Narayan Biswas of the CBI and ED respectively had acted against the summons issued against the duo by the Speaker Biman Banerjee, which was construed to be an act that breached the privilege of the custodian of the Assembly, the Speaker by skipping his summons.
Hence, the government had felt it prudent to give notice on the motion of breach privilege for the said act. Leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, while talking to the newsperson said that since the CBI and ED are the “constitutional bodies” they are immune to such summons and accordingly his party leaders, who are members of the privilege committee in the Assembly would steadfastly oppose the move.
“The privilege motion has been passed with a voice vote in West Bengal Assembly and sent to the privilege committee where it will see strong opposition by BJP members. TMC is scared of CBI and ED because they are involved in almost all the scams,” Adhikari said.
Today’s development at the behest of the government came on the backdrop of the CBI and ED’s filing of charge sheets against the three lawmakers which include late Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim. Madan Mitra was the latest among the lawmakers whose name was included in the charge sheet by the two central agencies without allegedly taking the consent of the Assembly Speaker.
Kolkata city sessions court on Tuesday granted interim bail to Hakim, TMC leader MLA Madan Mitra, and ex-mayor Sovan Chatterjee in the Narada scam on the bond of Rs 20,000. The two officers of the central agencies had vehemently opposed the Speaker’s move and defended their act skipping summons by asserting that they followed the law and before filing charge sheets required no permission from the Speaker since they had taken the nod from the Governor, Jagdeep Dhankhar, the constitutional head of the state in this regard on issuing summons against state lawmakers.
Dhankar had on 10 May sanctioned the prosecution of Hakim, Mukherjee, Mitra and Sovan Chatterjee in the Narada scam being investigated by the CBI. They even moved the Calcutta High Court seeking to quash the Speaker’s summons and were asked to meet the Speaker but were shielded from any harsh action from the Speaker by the court verdict.
Earlier, in the House, the members of the Opposition BJP today staged a walk out of the House in protest against the government’s decision to reduce the VAT on liquor while sitting on the issue on reducing prices of petroleum products, which the other BJPruled states had done after the Centre had waived the excise duty on those items.