Tushar Mehta, the Solicitor General, denied meeting Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Suvendu Adhikari on Friday, claiming that while Adhikari came to his house to meet him, the meeting could not take place.
“Shri Suvendhu Adhikari did come to my residence cum office yesterday at around 3pm, unannounced. Since I was already in a pre-scheduled meeting in my chamber, my staff requested him to sit in the waiting room of my office building and offered him a cup of tea. When my meeting was over and my staff informed me about his arrival, I requested my staff to convey to Mr Adhikari my inability to meet him and apologise as he had to wait,” Mehta noted in a statement to Hindustan Times.
Suvendu Adhikari is a suspect in the Narada sting case and the Saradha chit fund fraud, according to a letter sent by three TMC MPs, Derek O’Brien, Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, and Mahua Moitra. According to the TMC, his meeting with the Solicitor General would have an impact on the outcome of high-profile cases.
“The meeting stinks of impropriety, there is a blatant conflict of interest, and it taints the status of the country’s second highest law official, the Solicitor General,” the TMC MPs wrote.
According to TMC MPs, the Solicitor General is representing the CBI in the Narada case in both the Supreme and High Courts, as well as functioning as an advisor to the CBI in the Saradha chit fund scandal.
To maintain the “neutrality and integrity” of the office of the Solicitor General of India, necessary steps should be taken for the removal of Mehta from the post, the TMC MPs said in the letter to the prime minister.
In the aftermath of the hotly contested West Bengal assembly elections in April-May, the TMC and the BJP are once again at odds. The BJP claims that the TMC targeted some of its employees after the Banerjee-led party won a third term. TMC, on the other hand, has thrown off the accusation. In connection with the Narada investigation, the CBI detained three TMC leaders on May 17, including two cabinet ministers and a former party leader. The Calcutta high court granted temporary bail to the four on May 28.
