HC reserves order on handover of Narada sting tapes

The Calcutta High Court on Monday will give its decision that to whom the Narada News will be submitting the raw video footage of the sting operation in which some Trinamool Congress leaders were filmed.

It may be recalled that on Tuesday the agency had filed an affidavit before the Court stating its inability to present the video footage, as directed by the Court on March 22, for security reasons.

On Friday, the counsel of the agency, Biman Chatterjee submitted before the Court pleading to allow the handover of the video footage to any investigating agency in Delhi.

Objecting the plea, Kalyan Banerjee, the counsel of some of the Trinamool Congress leaders, submitted that the agency should not handover the video footages to any agency like Central Bureau of Investigation as it is being controlled by the BJP government. He pleaded the Court to give an order to submit the footages either before the Calcutta High Court or Delhi High Court.

On March 22, the Calcutta High Court had also directed the Narada News to file an affidavit declaring that the video of the sting operation in which Trinamool Congress leaders were filmed is genuine and not a doctored one. 

At the same time the agency was also asked to mention in the affidavit the antecedents of the company, details of its owner, the date when the company was registered, details of its shareholders, the source of the fund to run the company, the date from when the sting operation had begun before 2014 and the places where the videos were shot.

The affidavit that the agency had submitted on April 5 contains many details about Mathew Samuel of Narada News. 

The Court on Friday directed the agency to file another affidavit containing further details. The next hearing in this case is on April 15.