File Photo: Trinamool Congress General Secretary Mukul Roy.
The all India general secretary Mukul Roy of the Trinamool Congress may appear before the CBI in Kolkata for questioning in the Saradha scam on January 28.
Mr Roy has reportedly emailed the CBI saying he can appear before it any time after 2 pm on Wednesday. He has reportedly said he will be in Kolkata for three days from January 28.
The Supreme Court is likely to hear the petition filed before it by the West Bengal government and the Trinamool Congress on Tuesday.
Political observers say Mukul Roy was avoiding appearing before CBI till the Supreme Court has heard the petitions.
Mr Roy was summoned by the CBI on January 12 when he was in Delhi. He had said he would contact them when he returned to Kolkata.
On January 14, he returned to Kolkata, met chief minister Mamata Banerjee and sent a lawyer to CBI with a letter seeking 15 days' time to appear before it.
His plea: the date had been announced for two bypolls in Bengal and he had to oversee the filing of nominations by January 27.
The CBI agreed to give him only 7 days' time.
In the meanwhile, the state govt and Trinamool went to Supreme Court on January 19 urging it to monitor the CBI's Saradha probe.
The Supreme Court was supposed to hear the petitions today, Thursday, but that got put off as one of the judges was ill.
Meanwhile, yesterday (Wed), state Congress leader Abdul Mannan's lawyer urged the Supreme Court for urgent hearing of two contempt petitions filed last year against a host of Trinamool leaders, including Mamata Banerjee.
Mannan had complained that many Trinamool leaders had held demonstrations against the CBI in front of its office in Kolkata. And Mamata Banerjee had held a protest march after her minister Madan Mitra was arrested by CBI in the Saradha case.
Mannan had complained that such actions amounted to contempt of the Supreme Court which had ordered the CBI probe into the Saradha case.