The Trinamool Congress Government suffered a triple whammy on its second birthday on Monday with the Calcutta High Court delivering three crucial orders with far reaching consequences for the Bengal’s ruling outfit.
First, the court ordered a CBI inquiry into the custodial death of Kaji Nasiruddin a youth in Dhaniakhali — allegedly at the instance of local politicians. Second, a division bench of the court refused to stay a single bench order establishing the pre-eminence of the State Election Commission in the matters of panchayat elections. And finally, in a separate case, the court pulled up the State Government for failing to hold election in a Kolkata Corporation ward and ordered it to conduct the poll in four month.
Hearing a PIl, the division bench of Chief Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Joymalya Bagchi directed the CID to hand over the Kazi Nasiruddin case to the CBI in a week’s time expressing dissatisfaction at the way the investigations was being conducted.
The victim reportedly succumbed to police excesses on January 18 after he was arrested allegedly at the behest of a local Trinamool MlA on a petty case and beaten up inside the police station. Himself a Trinamool worker, the victim was reportedly protesting against some shady transactions of the party high-ups.
His death triggered a massive public furore against the ruling party and the men in khaki even as the villagers attacked the police station. Subsequently the Government ordered a CID inquiry with little outcome.
In the second case, the same division bench took a stern position and refused to grant a stay as demanded by the State Government on an order earlier passed by Justice Bishwanath Somaddar directing it to hold panchayat elections in three phases and under the supervision of Central forces as desired by the State Election Commission.
Not only this, the court also said that in no circumstances panchayat elections could be put in abeyance. The court said, “Conducting panchayat elections is a constitutional obligation which could not be postponed.”
Further more what tended to upset the Trinamool’s calculations to drag the hearing beyond summer vacations, the court said that it would hear the case on daily basis and in most probability dispose it of by Friday the day when the court closes summer vacation.
In the third instance, the court pulled up the State Government for failing to hold elections to ward number 1 of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation for the past two years and directed it to conduct the polls within September.
The KMC is currently run by the Trinamool Congress. When advocate lakshmi Bihani reminded the court that 22 other wards were still lying vacant and polls had not been held by the Government in those wards, the Judges said they would hear the issue if separate suits were filed in such cases.