CBI challenges top TMC leaders' house arrest

The CBI went to the Supreme Court to challenge the Calcutta High Court order allowing the house arrest of four political leaders from Bengal - three from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool - in the Narada bribery case. The fourth is a former party leader. The central agency wants high court hearing to be cancelled. The high court, meanwhile, has dismissed the CBI's request to adjourn its hearing. Those arrested are ministers Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee, MLA Madan Mitra, and Sovan Chatterjee, who quit the Trinamool to join the BJP before leaving that party too in March. Hakim is a key minister in the fight against Covid-19 in Kolkata, was also allowed to work from home. Earlier, the high court denied interim bail for all four. This was after a difference of opinion split the two-member bench - acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal ordered house arrest but Justice Arijit Banerjee ordered interim bail.