HC adjourns Narada case hearing till August 26

Kolkata, Aug 19 (PTI) The Calcutta High Court todayadjourned the hearing in the Narada case till August 26,extending the interim stay on an investigation by the KolkataPolice into the sting operation. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Manjula Chellurand Justice Arijit Banerjee adjourned the hearing as stateminister Subrata Mukherjee and former minister Madan Mitrawere yet to file affidavits with regard to a report by theCentral Forensic Science Laboratory, Chandigarh. The court directed that the interim stay on the probe bythe Kolkata Police into the Narada sting operation wouldcontinue till the next date of hearing on August 26. Counsel for Mitra submitted that as his client was injudicial custody, he had not been able to affirm his affidavitand prayed for time to file it by Monday. The bench had on August 5 stayed the investigation byKolkata Police into the Narada sting tapes which purportedlyshowed senior Trinamool Congress leaders taking money. The bench had then observed that when the matter wasalready being probed by the high court, a parallelinvestigation cannot be held by the police. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had on June 17ordered a probe by the Kolkata Police into the stingoperation. The bench had on August 5 said that advocates on recordinvolved in the matter might go through the report of CFSL,Chandigarh, and submit in affidavit form any point they wantto raise over its contents. The high court had sent the Narada sting tapes toChandigarh CFSL after its counterpart in Hyderabad hadexpressed its inability to analyse the genuineness of therecordings. Mathew Samuel, the editor of Narada News, had claimedthat the alleged sting operation had been recorded using aniPhone, transferred to a laptop and then to a pendrive, allof which were sent by the high court to CFSL, Chandigarh forexamination of the genuineness of the recordings. PTI AMR MDDV