Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Thursday approached the vacation bench of the Calcutta High Court and prayed for an emergency hearing. Mr Banerjee was barred from traveling abroad by the Enforcement Directorate and sought the court’s intervention in the matter.
The High Court granted relief to the Diamond Harbor MP from traveling abroad with his wife for medical reasons. The development comes days after Mr Banerjee on May 28 said that 1% of Calcutta High Court judges were working “with the Centre” to protect certain individuals, targeting a section of the judiciary.
The Trinamool Congress secretary’s remarks drew strong opposition from the opposition and the matter was brought to the notice of the court. While the court did not see enough material to initiate contempt proceedings against the MP, the remarks come at a time when the Trinamool Congress government has faced several setbacks in the Calcutta High Court.
The Calcutta High Court had given the direction on cases of violence in Birbhum’s Bogatui, murder of a Congress councilor in Purulia, rape and subsequent death of a minor in Nadia and irregularities in West Bengal School Service Commission Recruitment (WBSSC). The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted investigations in the last three months. Earlier, in August 2021, the High Court had directed a CBI probe into the post-poll violence after the results of the 2021 assembly elections were declared.
What Mr Banerjee was talking about protecting “certain persons” was probably directed at Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, who has been relieved by the high court in cases registered against him by the state government.
In all the by-elections since the last assembly election, the state’s ruling party has won with an overwhelming majority each time and no opposition party could resist. Two Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MPs and half a dozen MLAs have joined the state’s ruling party in a year. The condition of opposition parties in West Bengal is deplorable. The BJP, which has shown promise before May 2021, is a divided house and the Left parties which have been losing support since 2011 have shown no signs of coming back.
The only setback for the Mamata Banerjee-led government is in the Calcutta High Court. The repeated CBI probes and comments by the High Court are causing embarrassment to the ruling party of the state. While incidents like the Bogtui violence reflect the poor law and order situation in the state, irregularities in the recruitment of the School Service Commission raise questions on corruption.
Abhishek Banerjee is not the first Trinamool leader to target the judiciary. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, while attending a joint conference of chief ministers of states and chief justices of high courts in April this year, had expressed concern about “politically compelling cases” being taken up in high courts. Last year, when a court was hearing an election petition filed by the chief minister on the Nandigram election results, it imposed a fine of ₹5 lakh for “slander adopted to seek sacking”.
In August 2012, the Calcutta High Court issued notice to Ms Banerjee after her remarks on the judiciary at a seminar organized by the West Bengal Legislative Assembly were reported by a section of the media. Though the court did not initiate any contempt proceedings, the comments in the public domain created an uproar in the state. In the same year, the High Court issued a contempt notice against West Bengal minister Becharam Manna for allegedly making derogatory remarks against the judiciary over its order on the disputed land in Singur. The state government had trouble with not only the judiciary but also quasi-judicial bodies, especially when retired Supreme Court judge Ashok Kumar Ganguly was the chairman of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission. In the past few years, even quasi-judicial bodies have been shying away from taking up issues that are important to the state government.
What is troubling the ruling party of the state is that from the payment of dearness allowance to state government employees to the unnatural death of student leader Anish Khan, the West Bengal government has to defend everything before the courts and many more. The decision is coming in the cases. against the government.