Kolkata, April 11 (IANS) In a relief to West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee government, the Calcutta High Court Friday stayed an order passed by its single bench directing the state police chief to personally appear before it and explain inaction against a Trinamool Congress leader for a hate speech.
The state government during the day moved the division bench of Chief Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Joymalya Bagchi against Justice Dipankar Datta’s order. Government counsel Ashok Banerjee argued that Justice Datta’s observations against the government were based on newspaper reports without verifying the contents.
The plea was opposed by the lawyer for the petitioner Hriday Ghosh, whose father Sagar Ghosh was killed during last year’s rural polls.
After hearing the submissions of both parties, the division bench stayed the order for three weeks and sought all records connected to the case from the trial court. The matter will be heard next after three weeks in the first week of May.
“We made an appeal. We have got a stay. This implies the DGP will not have appear before the court,” Banerjee told media persons outside the court.
Looking grim, Ghosh said it was his feeling that the process of justice has been delayed.
Hearing a petition in connection with Ghosh’s murder, Justice Dutta Thursday also took judicial notice of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sharing the dais at a public rally with Birbhum district Trinamool president Anubrata Mandal — the accused number one in the case.
The court had also expressed its disappointment over Mandal not being arrested despite clear video footage of him making a hate speech where he is asking his party workers to attack police with bombs.
The court had also rapped the Banerjee government earlier after seeing videos of Mandal inciting party workers to resort to violence against independent candidates and hurl bombs at police if they prevented them from doing so.
Days after Mandal’s hate speech, Ghosh, a Trinamool leader who had become a rebel, was shot July 21 last year and succumbed to his injuries two days later.
Expressing displeasure at the shoddy investigation by the CID in the matter, Justice Dutta directed the constitution of a special investigation team to probe the murder case.
