In a major embarrassment for the Trinamool Congress Government and the State Police Department which is headed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday ordered CBI inquiry into the high-profile Parui murder case taking it from the State Police.
The murder took place during last year’s panchayat elections when Sagar Ghosh the father of a rebel Trinamool candidate Hriday Ghosh was murdered by alleged supporters Birbhum district Trinamool president Anubrata Mandal barely days after he publicly enticed his party men to attack and torch rebels’ houses and bomb police vehicles.
The court not only ordered a CBI probe but also severely censured the police, particularly the Special Investigation Team headed by the State DGP for leaking the contents of the investigation reports to the Government representatives apart from tampering with and ignoring vital evidences.
Justice Harish Tandon hearing the case directed the CBI to hand over all the material related to the case to the CBI which will on its part hold a court-monitored investigation.
The unusually harsher part of the judgment was the Court’s rejection of State counsel Kalyan Banerjee to grant a stay on his order and allow the Government to move a Division Bench.
Ruling that the SIT had destroyed the faith the Court had reposed in it by allowing tampering and ignoring evidences besides sharing the contents of the report with Government representatives instead of submitting it in a sealed envelope before the Judge Justice Tandon said that the entire investigation was tainted with extraneous interference.
Curiously, the SIT had allowed the investigating officers to drop the names of the two prime accused, including Mandal from the FIR lodged by Ghosh’s wife. Earlier the Court had summoned the DGP to personally appear before him and get his statement recorded.
While the Government counsel said the State would prefer an appeal before the Division Bench the Opposition reacted strongly and sharply saying the order itself pointed fingers at the DGP and so he should resign his post.
“Now the Government should take lesson from the order and allow rule of law to function in the State” BJP State president Rahul Sinha said while CPI(M)’s Sujan Chakrabarty said that the “if they have slightest of shame left in them they would ask the DGP to resign.”