New Delhi: Ex-TMC MLA, Sovan Chatterjee, who recently jumped ship to the Bharatiya Janata Party has been summoned by the CBI in connection with the Narada sting operation case, sources here said.
Chatterjee has been asked to appear before agency officials in Kolkata on August 31 in connection with the case, where several then senior TMC members, including Chatterjee, were covertly recorded demanding and accepting cash bribes.
According to the Central Bureau of Investigation, Chatterjee was seen accepting Rs 4 lakh in cash from Matthew Samuel, the sting operator and owner of Narada News, where the footage was first released before the 2016 Assembly polls in West Bengal.
Meanwhile, TMC Rajya Sabha MP KD Singh and Samuel were questioned by probe officials at the CBI headquarters here in the Capital, on Wednesday.
Singh had earlier this year come under the scanner of the Enforcement Directorate, which had attached his properties worth over Rs 200 crore in connection with a Ponzi scheme his company, Alchemist Infra Realty Limited was accused of running.
Sources said that some members of the investigating team probing the Narada case in Kolkata had come to Delhi for Singh and Samuel's questioning.
In fact, senior BJP leader in West Bengal and formerly of the Trinamool Congress, Mukul Roy was also seen entering the CBI headquarters earlier on Wednesday, where he was examined in connection with the Narada case, according to sources.
When the case first came to light, CBI's preliminary enquiry in the matter had established that Roy was seen demanding a bribe from sting operator Matthew Samuel, who had presented himself as the chief of a fictitious company asking for favours.
The CBI had registered the FIR in the case in April 2017 and Roy was questioned by the CBI in September of the same year. But later in November 2017, Roy formally joined the saffron brigade, after which he was left alone for nearly
two years, before deposing before agency officials on Wednesday.
Sources here added that another accused in the Narada tapes scam, TMC Lok Sabha MP Aparupa Poddar has also been summoned by the CBI to appear before its officials in Kolkata on September 2.
While CBI's preliminary enquiry report discloses that Poddar was seen accepting Rs 3 lakh in cash from Samuel, it also makes clear that she was not a public servant at the time the footage was recorded in April 2014.
She was allegedly expecting to get elected to the Lok Sabha in the General Election that year and was duly elected as an MP from the Arambagh constituency, which she continues to represent in parliament till date.