Bengal Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari has moved the Supreme Court seeking the transfer of Nandigram election case to some other High Court out of Bengal on grounds that the ruling Trinamool Congress was trying to create intense pressure on the local judiciary on the issue.
The development comes days after Justice Kaushik Chanda of Calcutta High Court recused himself from the case but not before imposing a fine of `5 lakh on the petitioner — Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee — for allegedly trying to bring judiciary to disrepute.
Adhikari is known to have made the observations of the Calcutta High Court his plank of argument seeking transfer of the case.
He had in the recently concluded Assembly elections defeated Banerjee by about 19,00 votes leading the Chief Minister to challenge the counting process. She sought a re-counting of the votes. When the matter was listed for hearing in Justice Chanda’s court she pleaded to get it transferred to some other Bench on the grounds of the Judge’s political past.
Subsequently the pained Judge popularly known for his integrity recused himself from the case which was transferred to the Bench of Justice Shampa Sarkar.
Meanwhile, Court on Wednesday admitted petition challenging the result of Nandigram assembly poll and directed the Election Commission to preserve all records and devices related to the elections. The Judge also served a notice to BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari. The next date of hearing has been fixed on August 12.
In an unrelated development a team of CID officials on Wednesday visited the house of Suvendu Adhikari in connection with the mysterious death of one of his former security guards three years ago.
The investigators spoke to his brother and MP Dibyendu Adhikari while Opposition BJP called it a vendetta politics.