New Delhi:

The CBI has approached the Supreme Court to challenge a Calcutta High Court order allowing the house arrest of four political heavyweights from Bengal – three of whom are from Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool – in connection with the Narada bribery case.

The central agency wants today’s High Court hearing – a five-member bench is scheduled to hear the politicians’ bail plea – to be cancelled.

Those arrested are ministers Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee, MLA Madan Mitra, and Sovan Chatterjee, a former Trinamool leader who quit to join the BJP before leaving that party in March.

On Friday 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.

The court also rejected a CBI request to stay its order – which allowed the four to leave jail. The agency had argued they were influential leaders and could threaten witnesses.

In dramatic developments through the last week, central security forces went with CBI officials to the homes of the four leaders on Monday, brought them to the CBI’s main Kolkata office and arrested them.

The action in the case has been questioned by Trinamool which has called it a blatant attempt to settle scores after Ms Banerjee’s victory in April-May elections that devolved into a battle with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Narada case involves a 2014 sting op by a journalist who posed as a businessman planning to invest in Bengal. He gave wads of cash to seven Trinamool MPs, four ministers, one MLA and a police officer as a bribe and taped the entire exchange.

The tapes were released just before the 2016 assembly elections in the state.