New Delhi: A special CBI court in Kolkata granted bail to suspended IPS officer SMH Meerza on Thursday, in connection with the Narada sting operation case based on an out-of-turn plea that his son was ill and that he had remained in custody for 55 days.
Judge Anupam Mukhopadhyay granted Meerza bail on the strict condition that he should not leave West Bengal without the court's permission and that he must submit to CBI officials for questioning once a week.
Interestingly, Judge Mukhopadhyay had just weeks ago rejected the senior IPS officer's bail plea, and extended his judicial custody till November 26. But according to the former police officer's lawyer, the fresh bail plea was made keeping Meerza's son's health in mind.
Meerza was the Superintendent of Police in the Burdwan district, when the sting operation was conducted by Mathew Samuel, owner and Editor of Narada News, where the tapes were first released in the run up to the 2016 Assembly polls in the state.
The tapes had shown several MPs and MLAs accepting cash amounts from Samuel, who was posing as the owner of a company looking for favours with the state government. According to a preliminary investigation by the CBI, the tapes had shown TMC-turned-BJP politician Mukul Roy, then MP instructing Samuel that he would not accept the bribe amount himself, but through Meerza.
Another tape showed Roy telling Samuel that a meeting had been set up with Meerza, who would accept the "five" from him. A later tape shows the IPS officer accepting a wad of Rs 5 lakh in cash from the sting operator.
Meerza was the CBI's first arrest in the Narada case, following which Roy was even summoned for questioning. Meerza was also confronted with Roy and CBI sleuths also recreated the scenes shown in the tapes at Roy's home.
Moreover, while the CBI has sought sanction to prosecute four erstwhile MPs of the Trinamool Congress, the central agency has remained conspicuously silent with respect to investigative leads showing possible complicity of Roy. Roy had joined the BJP within four months of the CBI registering a case against him in 2017.