Bengal Governor sanctions prosecution against 3 top TMC leaders and an ex-TMC leader

A day before 43 Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLAs including senior leaders of the party take oath as Ministers of the newly-elected TMC government, West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar announced that he has accorded sanction for prosecution to the CBI against Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Madan Mitra and Sovan Chatterjee.

While Hakim, Mukherjee and Mitra are senior TMC leaders and were all Ministers in the West Bengal Government, Chatterjee, a former Minister in the TMC government joined the BJP in August 2019. He has recently severed ties with the saffron party.

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The announcement was made in rebuttal of certain media reports claiming that the sanction for prosecution against the concerned persons was given as they were MLAs at the “relevant time of commission of crime.”

The Governor made the announcement by tweeting a release issued by the Raj Bhavan on Sunday.

“Governor accorded sanction for prosecution of Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Madan Mitra & Sovan Chatterjee being appointing authority of Ministers @MamataOfficial under Article 164 & thus competent authority. Media reports that sanction was for being MLA is incorrect,” tweeted Dhankhar.

The CBI had approached the Governor seeking permission to prosecute the concerned persons in relation to the Narada sting operation case.

“Hon’ble Governor is the competent authority to accord sanction in terms in terns of law as he happens to be the appointing authority in terms of Article 164 of the Constitution,” stated the release.

It also stated that the sanction was accorded by the Governor after the CBI requested him and provided “entire documentation” related to the case.

“The sanction came to accorded by the Hon’ble Governor after the CBI had made a request and made available entire documentation relevant to the case to the Hon’ble Governor and he invoked his powers under article 163 and 164 of the Constitution, being the competent authority to accord such sanction,” stated the release.

Describing a section of media reports in this regard as “factually untenable” the Raj Bhavan made it clear in the release that the “premise of the sanction as indicated is that these persons at the relevant point of time of commission of crime were holding the position of Ministers in the Government of West Bengal.”