A Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday granted an interim stay on filing of FIR in the Tapas Pal hate-speech case where the Trinamool Congress MP from Krishnagore had publicly threatened the CPI(M) workers with murder and their women with rape more than a month ago.
The Bench of Justices Girish Gupta and T Chakrabarty ordered an interim stay — till Thursday noon — on the earlier order passed by Justice Dipankar Dutta who had directed the police to convert within 72 hours the complaint of petitioner Biplab Chowdhury against Pal into an FIR and transfer the case to the CID which he said would investigate the matter directly under his supervision.
In a bizarre turn of event where the State prosecutes the accused in all the cognisable offences made out under the Indian Penal Code, the Trinamool Government of Bengal — which has over the past three years climbed several notches to occupy the number one slot in terms of rape and attrocities against women — on Wednesday preferred to appeal before the Division Bench to get single Bench order quashed.
Kalyan Banerjee a Trinamool MP and senior advocate later said that “it was submitted before the honourable Court, how Justice Dipankar Dutta’s Court had exceeded its jurisdiction by suspecting the conduct of the police without knowing the
relevant facts and how he brought other matters which were not on record in his order”. The Government lawyers also questioned the jurisdiction of the Court in deciding the conduct of an MP who enjoyed certain privilages.
However, reacting strongly to the Government plea, advocate Arunabha Ghosh wondered whether such privilages were not restricted to the Parliement House and whether an MP was at liberty to commite all the offences mentioned and listed in the Indian Penal Code with immunity.
“If so has been argued by the Government advocates, then how were the cases filed against A Raja or for that matter Pappu Yadav all of who were MPs” he said adding an MP was a normal human being and had no immunity from any criminal case for his acts.
Curiously the Government side also argued that the single Bench Judge had erred in directing the police in registering an FIR in 72 hours of his judgment getting uploaded in the High Court website saying the time given to register the FIR was too short and longer time could have been given in such case.
Justice Dutta had earlier made caustic remarks suspecting the role of the men in uniform in such cases before directing the police to register an FIR and transfer the case to the CID for a Court-monitored investigation.