Calcutta High Court (HC) reserves judgement on Anubrata Mondal's bail plea

KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday reserved its judgment on the bail plea of Trinamool Congress strongman and Birbhum district President Anubrata Mondal in the multi-crore cattle smuggling case in West Bengal.

A division bench of Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Ajay Kumar Gupta reserved the verdict after arguments by both sides in the matter concluded, and it might be pronounced on Wednesday or the day after.

On Tuesday, the CBI's counsel claimed that Mondal, from prison, had been regularly interacting with the prime accused in the cattle smuggling scam, Enamul Haque.

Justice Bagchi then questioned CBI counsel D.P. Singh on whether the central agency sleuths have any specific proof to substantiate this charge. In reply, Singh claimed that these calls were made on through FaceTime medium and hence the recordings for such calls were not available. Thereafter, Justice Bagchi said that even if the recordings for the calls were made though FaceTime medium, at least the locations could be tracked through the IMEI number of the mobile phone used for that purpose. "Why can't that at least be traced?" he questioned.

The CBI counsel replied that already the central agency sleuths have started investigation into the matter and are also questioning some witnesses.

Thereafter the CBI counsel argued on the influential theory. "He (Mondal) is extremely influential. He was responsible for making the process of cattle smuggling smooth from three local cattle markets. He is a political giant. If his bail is granted, he will tamper with evidence and influence the witnesses, which he had already done before," counsel argued. On the other hand, Mondal's counsel, senior advocate Kapil Sibal argued that although the CBI named 96 witnesses in the FIR, their sleuths have been able to question only 33 among them. (IANS)

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