Narada case: SC to hear Mamata's appeal on June 25

Kolkata: The Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to hear on June 25 the appeals of TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and the party leader Moloy Ghatak against the June 9 order of the Calcutta High Court which had refused to take on record their affidavits on the CBI's transfer plea related to the Narada scam case.

The appeals, initially listed before a vacation bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and Aniruddha Bose, were referred to another bench by Chief Justice N V Ramana during the day itself after Justice Bose recused from the hearing without citing any reason.

A bench of Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheswari, to which the cases were referred, took up the matter in the afternoon.At outset, Justice Saran said the matters are fresh for the bench and they needed to go through the files before the hearing.

On being pointed out that earlier the top court had requested the High Court to defer the hearing till it decides the appeals, the bench said it would pass the same order urging the High Court to postpone the scheduled hearing there on June 23 and wait for two more days.

"The Supreme Court had noted earlier on June 18 that the High Court may not take up the matter on 21 and 22. Since the matter could not be taken up today, we hope the High Court will not take up the matter on any date prior to the 25th", the bench said in the order. On June 9, Calcutta High Court, hearing CBI's application for transfer of the Narada case from the special CBI court to the high court, said it will decide later on considering affidavits by Banerjee and Ghatak.