The Supreme Court, hearing an appeal against a Calcutta High Court order allowing CBI probe into an alleged coal mining and transportation case, Monday said it would first examine a legal issue whether an intra-court appeal can be entertained by the high court in a criminal matter against an order of a single judge bench.
A bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud, meanwhile, granted time to CBI to file its response to the appeal of Anup Majee, the director of a company engaged in purchase and sale of the dry fuel, which is an accused in a case of alleged illegal coal trading in the Asansol-Raniganj belt of West Bengal.
Majee, in his plea, has challenged the Calcutta High Court order which allowed the CBI to investigate a case of alleged illegal mining and transportation of coal in West Bengal without the State’s consent.
In the proceedings conducted through video conferencing, the bench, also comprising Justice M R Shah, referred to an earlier judgement in which it was held that a letter patent appeal (LPA), also known as intra-court appeal, would lie in the high court against the order of a single judge bench in a criminal case.
“We are concerned with the issue of maintainability of LPA before the division bench. We are not concerned with subsequent development,” the bench said.
It adjourned the hearing on Majee’s plea to March 10 after accepting the request of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta who was representing the CBI.
Earlier, the bench had issued notices to Centre and CBI and had sought their response by March 1 on the plea which claimed that the central probe agency lacked jurisdiction to lodge an FIR in the case after the withdrawal of general consent by the West Bengal Government in 2018.
It, however, had refused to grant protection to Majee.
Senior advocate A M Singhvi, appearing for West Bengal government, had said that he supported the contention of Majee on the question of law as there was no consent given to the CBI to investigate the case after West Bengal withdrew its general consent.
On February 12, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court had stayed a single bench order that had restricted a CBI investigation into alleged illegal mining and transportation of coal to just “railway areas” of the state and rejected the plea of Majee for grant of protection from any coercive action against him.
It has been observed that if the process of investigation is stalled at this stage, material evidence which may have to be collected can get lost and the accused may be able to achieve the objective for which “frivolous litigation” has been filed.