KOLKATA:
Calcutta high court
on Monday set aside an order by former judge
Abhijit Ganguly
that fined
Egra sub-divisional police officer
Rs 5 lakh for allegedly “harassing”
Krishnendu Adhikari
, the elder brother of BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, Bengal’s leader of opposition.
Ganguly joined BJP in March. He is the party candidate in Tamluk, one of the LS constituencies in East Midnapore, the Adhikaris’ home district.
A division bench of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya held that Ganguly’s order was passed without giving the state “appropriate opportunity” to present its case.
The bench observed that such a situation was “uncalled for”.
The bench directed the registry to list Krishnendu’s petition in an appropriate court to be heard “afresh” in June and stayed a notice sent to him by cops.
Egra cops had sent the notice asking Krishnendu to attend a questioning session as a “witness” in a case over poor lighting on the Mecheda-Digha Bypass in East Midnapore. Krishnendu moved the former HC judge’s court in Nov 2023, praying for quashing the notice as the cops went beyond their remit and asked him to attend the session with 10 years’ income-tax returns.
Ganguly admitted Krishnendu’s petition and passed an order the same day imposing Rs 5 lakh as cost on the Egra SDPO for “harassment”. “This is nothing but harassment. The police force was not created to harass a citizen,” the former judge had observed.
On Monday, state advocate-general Kishore Datta moved an appeal. “No submission was made by the lawyer. Nothing was recorded in the order. The order was passed the day the petition reached the court,” Datta contended.
Datta, pointing to the “chequered history” of the case, also referred to orders of a number of single-judge benches of HC. The CJ-led division bench did not go into the merits of the case but set aside the order saying the state was not heard. “Contesting respondents should have the opportunity to file affidavits. Let them file the affidavits,” CJ Sivagnanam observed.
