The West Bengal CID on Thursday arrested Sumit Roy, personal assistant to Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee, shortly after the Supreme Court rejected his anticipatory bail plea in an alleged government land fraud case in Salboni.
CID officials picked up Roy from Banerjee’s Kalighat residence after the Supreme Court refused to grant him pre-arrest protection and vacated its earlier order staying his arrest. A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana declined to interfere with the Calcutta High Court’s 3 August order rejecting Roy’s anticipatory bail plea.
The case relates to allegations that West Bengal government land in Salboni was illegally transferred and sold after being divided into smaller plots, with investigators probing the alleged financial trail of the transactions. The case has been registered under provisions relating to cheating, criminal breach of trust, forgery, use of forged documents and criminal conspiracy.
The state government had strongly opposed Roy’s plea before the Supreme Court, arguing that his custodial interrogation was necessary for the investigation. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court that Roy had not provided satisfactory answers during questioning and that investigators needed to examine the alleged financial transactions connected to the case.
According to CID sources, Roy had appeared before investigators 11 times and was questioned for around 88 hours, including nine appearances in connection with the Salboni case.
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