Calcutta, Feb. 22: Shibaji Panja, who was part of Mamata Banerjee's business delegation to Bangladesh and is considered her showbiz gatekeeper, was arrested at Calcutta airport immediately after he landed from Dhaka along with the chief minister last night.

Panja, in his late thirties and described in private by an A-lister as "the Tollywood minister of Bengal", was arrested on the basis of a lookout circular issued by Delhi's South Kalkaji police station in connection with a 2014 fraud case after he accessed a finance facility of Rs 18 crore.

He has been charged with cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy but a Barrackpore court granted him bail because the Calcutta airport police station officers could not produce documents during the hearing.

Asked about the arrest of a member of her delegation, Mamata reacted with anger.

" Keno aami ki business kori (Why ask me, am I a business person)?" the chief minister said at the airport while leaving for Patna to attend the swearing-in of Nitish Kumar as Bihar chief minister.

"Why are you asking me?" Mamata said.

"It was non-official," she added. "Businessmen often have some cases pending against them."

It was not clear what Mamata meant by "non-official". But in the evening, Trinamul spokesperson Derek O'Brien confirmed that Panja was indeed "a delegate".

"Panja is not a member of the Trinamul Congress. He is a businessman who was part of a delegation to Bangladesh. The law will take its own course. However, the timing of his arrest smacks of vendetta, a ploy to undermine the hugely successful visit of the chief minister to Bangladesh," O'Brien said.

The lookout circular was issued on February 18 but the immigration officials at Calcutta airport received it on February 20. Government sources said Panja had left for Dhaka on February 18, a day before Mamata.

In Bangladesh, Panja was visible only at Mamata's first public programme. He was seen hanging around with film producer Shrikant Mohta and clicking pictures. "I also saw him with some members of the Bangladesh film industry," said a delegation member.

Mamata is now trying to downplay his status in the delegation but he did have access to vantage positions. On February 20, Panja had uploaded on Twitter a picture of Mamata with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, which appears to have been taken from close quarters. 

Panja, who owns a film and serial production company called Vandana Films, is the editor of a magazine, Sangrami Maa Mati Manush, which carries a column - Chalo Jai - by the chief minister.

He was stopped at the immigration counter after getting off the Air India flight from Dhaka around 10pm. Mamata, who had arrived on the same flight, had left the airport a few minutes earlier as her immigration clearance was fast-tracked as part of protocol.

"An immigration official asked Panja to stand aside after scanning his passport," said an airport official. Trinamul leader and state urban development minister Firhad Hakim was at another counter getting his clearance.

Seeing Panja being stopped, Hakim also stood there, said a source. Hakim called the chief minister, who was on her way to the city from the airport.

Jawed Shamim, the Biddhannagar police commissioner who too had left the airport once the chief minister drove off towards the city, was instructed by Mamata to return immediately, sources said.

Panja was taken to a room adjacent to the immigration counters on the upper level of the airport's arrival lounge. According to sources, he was offered coffee. Minister Hakim and senior police officers of the commissionerate were with him all along.

"Before midnight, he was formally arrested. Hakim and the police officers left around 12.15am," said a source. Minutes after that, Panja was taken to the airport police station for sometime and from there to the Bidhannagar State General Hospital in Salt Lake. He spent the night at the hospital.

Panja has been charged under Sections 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

Some of the sections are non-bailable - which means only a court can grant bail. Panja was granted bail on several grounds.

Lawyers said that if a person is arrested from a place outside the jurisdiction of the police station from where the lookout circular was issued, the copy of the FIR and the investigating officer's report have to be attached.

However, in this case, no such document was attached by the Bidhannagar police.

Public prosecutor Madhumita Banerjee reportedly told the acting additional chief judicial magistrate, Rajarshi Mukherjee, that the police had communicated with Delhi police and Panja would be handed over to them. But when the magistrate asked for proof of the communication, the police could not produce it.

Besides, no representative of the Delhi police was present at the court to submit a prayer for transit remand.

A team of five lawyers who represented Panja contended that since none of the requirements had been met by the police, he should be given bail. The magistrate accepted the request against a personal bond of Rs 50,000.