Narada Case : Supreme Court Asks WB Govt, CM Mamata Banerjee & Law Minister To File Applications Before Calcutta High Court To Accept Their Affidavits

The Supreme Court on Friday directed the State of West Bengal, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and the State Law Minister Moloy Ghatak - who are challenging the refusal of the Calcutta High Court to accept their affidavits filed in the Narada case - to file an application before the High Court stating the reasons for not filing such affidavits earlier.They are directed to file the applications by June 28, after serving advance copies to the CBI on June 27. The CBI has been given liberty to file reply to the applications.The Supreme Court further requested the High Court to decide first the applications seeking acceptance of affidavits on the next scheduled hearing date, June 29.To facilitate this arrangement, the Supreme Court set aside the June 9 order passed by the High Court, wherein it had refused to take on record the affidavits filed by the State, Chief Minister and Law Minister in the CBI's transfer plea in the Narada Scam case."...we are of the opinion that the petitioners ought to have given an application to take the respective counter-affidavits on record, especially when the submissions of the parites were going and had progressed substantially. At this stage, a suggestion was made by this court that the matter could be remanded to the High Coiurt to decide afresh on the basis of the reasons given in the applications filed by the petitioners within the specified time. The counsel for the parites have graciously agreed to the suggesion of this court", the Supreme Court recorded in the order.A vacation bench comprising Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari said that it was not going into the merits of the matter and was confining itself only to the issue of grant to time for filing counter-affidavits.Submissions of CM and Law Minister In today's hearing, Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi appeared for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Law Minister Moloy Ghatak. He submitted that the effective arguments before the larger bench started only on May 31. On May 27, the larger bench said that it was going to decide first the applications for recall filed by the TMC leaders against the stay of their bail order.On June 2, the CBI filed an additional affidavit. The Solicitor General finished his arguments for CBI on June 3. There was no hearing on June 4, 5 and 6. The State filed its counter on June 7. Banerjee and Ghatak filed their counter-affidavits on June 9. The counter-affidavits of Banerjee and Ghatak were necessary in view of the allegations made by the CBI that the protests led by them on May 17 against the arrest of TMC leaders vitiated the bail hearing before the Special CBI Court at Kolkata."The bench refused to accept the counter-affidavits saying that it was an attempt to fill the lacunae after the arguments of Solicitor General. The concept of 'not-allowing filling of lacunae' is only there in civil proceedings and not in criminal proceedings", Mr.Dwivedi submitted.Submissions of State of West BengalSenior Advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for the State of West Bengal, said that the High Court rules give right to a party to file a reply. It was only out of courtesy that the State sought permission to file reply; there was no need to ask such permission, since it as a right. Such right cannot be presumed to be given up. Only if the High Court has given a time-limit for filing reply, the filing of counter-affidavit can be barred beyond such time-limit, Mr.Singh said.The State was impleaded as party only on May 27. The Chief Minister and Law Minister were served notice also only on May 27. State has raised an objection to the maintainability of the petition on May 31.Mr.Singh said that the 5-judge bench had decided to hear the recall applications of the 4 TMC leaders first, and the arguments from May 27 were only related to the recall applications.Submissions of CBISolicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the CBI, that the Advocate General was present in all proceedings and orders of May 17 and 19 were passed only after hearing him. Though state was not joined as a party then, the Advocate General was heard.What was filed by the CBI on June 2 was not an affidavit as such, but only a chronology of events, which was submitted on the basis of request made by the bench after the completion of oral arguments on May 31, the SG said. He said that the state was represented throughout the hearing and they waited till June 9. taking a "calculated risk", to file the affidavits belatedly, to "fill up the lacunae" in the case. The Solicitor General also suggested that the Supreme Court could ask the parties to make a request before the 5-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court seeking permission for filing affidavit.Bench suggests parties approach the HC with an applicationAt this stage, Justice Saran asked Senior Advocate Vikas Singh, if any application was filed along with the affidavit seeking permission for take it on record."You were aware of the proceedings from Day 1....

Narada Case : Supreme Court Asks WB Govt, CM Mamata Banerjee & Law Minister To File Applications Before Calcutta High Court To Accept Their Affidavits

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