West Bengal guv Jagdeep Dhankhar sanctions CBI prosecution of top 4 TMC leaders

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Kolkata: The Governor of West Bengal Jagdeep Dhankhar on Sunday sanctioned the prosecution of four leaders of the Trinamool Congress — all of them ministers during the time of the alleged commission of a crime that came to light in the purported Narada sting tapes.

As per a Raj Bhavan official the decision to accord the sanctions against of Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Madan Mitra and Sovan Chatterjee was taken after a request was filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

"Honourable governor is the competent authority to accord sanction in terms of law as he happens to be the appointing authority for such ministers in terms of Article 164 of the Constitution," a statement issued by the officer of Raj Bhavan read.

The statement said that the sanction for prosecution of the four leaders was accorded by Dhankhar "after the CBI had made a request and made available entire documentation relevant to the case to the honourable governor and he invoked his powers under Article 163 and 164 of the Constitution, being the competent authority to accord such sanction".

The Narada sting tapes which was made public before the West Bengal 2016 assembly elections claimed to have been shot in 2014. In the video ministers, MPs and MLAs were allegedly seen receiving money from representatives of a fictitious company in lieu of promised favours.

The Calcutta High Court had ordered a CBI probe into the sting operation in March, 2017. 

The four ministers were a part of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's cabinet when the tapes were allegedly made in 2014.

Notably, 43 MLAs of TMC will take oath as ministers in Mamata's Cabinet in West Bengal on Monday. The swearing-in ceremony of ministers in West Bengal will be held tomorrow and the list of the Cabinet of Ministers has already been released.