In an order that tended to “surprise many of us” a Division Bench of Calcutta High Court on Thursday literally overturned an earlier order passed by a single Bench, directing CBI investigation into the infamous Parui murder case that took place during the panchayat elections last year.
The Bench, led by Justices Jayanta Biswas and IC Das, set aside the earlier order of Justice Harish Tandon saying there was no reason why a CBI probe should be ordered into a case which had already been probed by the Special Investigation Team under State DGP GMP Reddy.
Justice Tandon had on September 24 ordered a CBI investigation even as he found the SIT probe deficient on several counts. The investigation related to the high-profile murder of Sagar Ghosh an ex Trinamool rebel leader and current BJP leader Hriday Ghosh barely a couple of days after district Trinamool Congress president and local strongman Anubrata Mandal publicly directed his partymen to torch the rebels houses and bomb police vehicles.
The case was twice heard first by Justice Dipankar Dutta who had also made certain adverse remarks against the police and then by Justice Tandon who found immense deficiencies in the probe wondering how the DGP was influenced by the political administration during the probe.
The court had also expressed surprise as to why the dying declaration of the victim was not taken by police though he was alive for two days after the gun attack on him. The court was also astonished to find why the name of Mandal, prime accused named in the FIR, was dropped from the chargesheet.
The Bench on Thursday, however, threw out the earlier order saying mere hunch could not be the basis of any order adding even the role of the DGP was not mysterious as was observed by the earlier court.