A bench of five judges of Calcutta High Court on Thursday via video conferencing passed its verdict over the post-poll violence that erupted in West Bengal ordering a CBI monitored probe. The High Court also directed to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe that would comprise senior officers from the West Bengal cadre namely Soumet Mitra, Suman Bala and Ranbir Kumar. The proceeding of the investigation will be monitored by a retired judge of the SC, a detailed order regarding this will be issued later, the HC said.
The bench was led by Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and comprising Justices IP Mukerji, Harish Tandon, Soumen Sen and Subrata Talukdar.
The Union Minister Anurag Thakur welcomed the decision of the HC saying,” in a democracy, everyone has the right to spread their ideology but no one’s allowed to spread violence. There is no place for violence in democracy.”
However, Trinamool Congress member, Suagata Roy expressed melancholy over the decision of the HC saying,” If in every law & order matter which is entirely within State govt’s jurisdiction the CBI comes in it is a transgression on State’s right. I’m sure the state govt will judge the situation and take a decision to appeal to a higher court if necessary.”
Earlier a seven-member committee up by National Human Rights Commission had issued a 50-page report after it probed the situation.