Cash seizure: Calcutta HC junks Jharkhand MLAs’ plea, asks CID to continue probe

Dismissing their plea, the court ordered that the state police will investigate the incident. A single bench of Justice Mousumi Bhattacharya passed the order after hearing arguments from both sides.

On Wednesday, the court had heard the plea of the three arrested MLAs on “urgent basis”. They had requested the court that the CID investigation should be suspended immediately. If necessary, the investigation should be handed over to the CBI or any other independent investigation agency as the probe was being politically influenced.

The three MLAs — Irfan Ansari (Jamtara), Rajesh Kachhap (Khijri) and Naman Bixel (Kolebira) — were detained with nearly Rs 50 lakh.

The three Congress MLAs along with two others were detained at the Panchla-Ranihati junction in Howrah on July 30 night and were arrested the next day. Claiming that there was a “larger conspiracy” in this incident, the CID started an investigation.

The CID claimed that two of the three arrested MLAs had visited Kolkata on July 21 and several lakh rupees were paid to them by a businessman. Officials also claimed that before coming to Kolkata these two MLAs had met a senior BJP leader in Guwahati on July 20.

Meanwhile, a team of CID officials is stationed in Delhi while another team recently submitted a requisition seeking CCTV footage from the Guwahati airport.

“We have CCTV footage of the hotel where a person is seen coming on a scooter. We are not divulging the name of the person as of now. The MLAs sent a person to fetch the cash,” said a senior official.

The CID is also interrogating Mahendra Agarwal, a share broker whose office was raided earlier as they suspected that he may have arranged the cash for the MLAs. The agency is already probing the hawala angle in the case.

Sources said the three MLAs had visited a hotel at Sudder Street in Kolkata on Saturday. The CCTV footage of the hotel and staffers’ statements confirmed that the legislators spent just six minutes at a room to get freshen up. They then left for the resto-bar and stayed there for a while, sources said.

The money was allegedly arranged and handed over in this hotel, the CID claimed. The Congress suspended the MLAs after the news of the money seizure made headlines. The MLAs, however, claimed that they were in Kolkata to buy sarees from Burrabazar area for a tribal festival in Jharkhand.