Narada sting: Calcutta High Court seeks effidavit, next hearing on Apr 8

While hearing three Public Interest Litigations (PIL), which were filed demanding the CBI and ED joint probe into the sting operation incident, a division bench of Calcutta High Court, led by Chief Justice Manjula Chellur directed Narada News's counsel to submit affidavit, describing company's details, along with an unedited video of the sting and devices, used for shooting the video, before the court by Apr 5.

However, the court has set Apr 8 as the next date of hearing in this case.

 News portal- Narada News- on Monday released another sting operation footage, where Trinamool Congress (TMC) Lok Sabha MP from Arambag constituency Aparupa Poddar and former TMC students' leader Shankudeb Panda were allegedly seen while allegedly taking bribes.

In the sting footage it was shown that TMC MP Aparupa Poddar took 3 lakh rupees as bribe and former TMCP president Shankudeb Panda demanded stake in the business, instead of taking bribe.

However, Aparupa Poddar claimed that she never took money from anyone as bribe and the video footage was doctored. Shankudeb Panda could not be connected over telephone.

Earlier on Mar 14, Narada News released the first part of its sting operation's video, where West Bengal's ruling TMC leaders or officials or lawmakers, including MH Ahmed Mirza (senior police officer), Mukul Roy, Subrata Mukherjee, Sultan Ahmed, Suvendhu Adhikari,  Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Prasoon Banerjee, Sovon Chatterjee, Madan Mitra, Iqbal Ahmed and Farhad Hakim, were shown taking bribes.

TMC leaderships, however, claimed that the entire video was doctored and oppositions' conspiracy before the Bengal assembly polls.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)

Note: IBNS did not carry out the sting operation and we have not verified the contents of the sting independently.