Narada case: HC surprised as CBI yet to receive results of

The Calcutta High Court on Thursday expressed surprise that the CBI is yet to receive the results of an examination of forensic report on Narada sting tapes though a year has passed after it was sent to the USA.

Justice Joymalya Bagchi, while hearing a petition by West Bengal Transport Minister Suvendu Adhikari seeking quashing of proceedings against him in the Narada case, said it was astonishing that the CBI did not receive the results from the device manufacturer concerned in the USA even after so much time.

CBI lawyer Amajit De told the court that the forensic report given by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory on the voice samples in the video tapes were sent to the manufacturer of the device in which these were recorded, for examination, but the agency has not yet received the feedback.

Justice Bagchi directed that Adhikari's petition be tagged with the main Narada tapes case before it and said the matter would be heard again after the Christmas vacation.

The Calcutta High Court had ordered the CBI to conduct a preliminary enquiry in the Narada tapes and had later asked it to file an FIR to probe the incident.

Web portal Narada News had released video tapes before the West Bengal Assembly elections in 2016, in which persons resembling several Trinamool Congress MPs, MLAs and state ministers and an IPS officer were seen accepting money in lieu of promised favours.

Mathew Samuel, the editor of Narada News, had claimed that the alleged sting operation tapes had been recorded using an iPhone, transferred to a laptop and subsequently to a pendrive. The tapes were sent by the high court to CFSL, Chandigarh, for examination of the genuineness of the recordings.