ED issues fresh summons to Narada News CEO Mathew Samuel

Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate has issued fresh summons to Narada News CEO Mathew Samuel in its money laundering probe, initiated after a sting operation purportedly showed several Trinamool Congress leaders, including MPs and ministers, taking money.

Samuel was first summoned by the central probe agency to depose on Thursday at its office in Kolkata.

However, officials said, Samuel informed the agency that he would not be able to appear in person due to some medical condition and requested them to question him at his present location in Kerala.

Hence, Samuel has been asked to meet the investigating officer (IO) of the case on 24 May at its office in Kochi in Kerala, the officials said.

The ED has asked him to carry along documents relating to his personal finances, those of the news channel and material related to the purported sting operation, officials added.

Samuel is not an accused in the ED FIR, which is called the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), and the agency wants to quiz him to get information about the sting and circumstances in which it was carried out.

Samuel has already been quizzed by the CBI in this case earlier. CBI, too, is probing the case separately on charges of corruption.

The investigating agency had registered a criminal compliant in this case last month under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after studying the CBI FIR. It will probe the proceeds of crime generated in this case.

While the CBI’s criminal FIR had been registered against 12 TMC leaders and an IPS officer, the ED FIR has been booked against 14 entities that include a category of unidentified persons apart from the 13 in the CBI compliant, officials said.

The sting operation pertains to the filming of the TMC leaders and the IPS officer accepting money from the representatives of a fictitious company for extending favours to it.

The TMC leaders against whom the CBI has registered the FIR, now also booked by the ED, include Rajya Sabha MP Mukul Roy, Lok Sabha MPs Saugata Roy, Aparupa Poddar, Sultan Ahmed, Prasun Banerjee and Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar.

West Bengal ministers including Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim, Transport Minister Suvendu Adhikari, Environment Minister Sovan Chatterjee, Panchayati Raj and Rural Development Minister Subrata Mukherjee have also been named in the FIR.

Former Minister Madan Mitra, MLA Iqbal Ahmed and IPS officer Saiyaad Mustafa Hussain Mirza are also accused in the case.

Mirza, who was then posted as the Superintendent of Police of Burdwan, was also purportedly seen accepting money on camera.

The Calcutta High Court had ordered the CBI to conduct a preliminary enquiry in the matter and had later directed it to file an FIR to probe the incident. The FIR was registered under section 120 (b) of the Indian Penal Code related to criminal conspiracy and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act dealing with bribery and criminal misconduct.

The sting operation was supposed to be published in a magazine where Samuel was then working. However, the tapes were later run on Naradanews.com.