KolkataAmid the ongoing court-monitored probe by central agencies into the school job scam and animal smuggling cases and the arrest of two senior TMC leaders, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said there should not be a ‘media trial’ and it should be done. Should be. Leave it to the judiciary to find out the truth.
In a reference to daily media reports following the arrests of former minister Partha Chatterjee and TMC Birbhum district president Anubrata Mondal, the party supremo urged the press to “not defame his party and instead present genuine news”.
“Sometimes such news misleads and misleads and gives false names even if they are not true. Let the judiciary go through the evidence and give its verdict after ascertaining the truth.
“But please don’t do media trials, friends, don’t try to defame us. Instead, present real news,” the chief minister said while handing over the eight floors of the new secretariat building to the Calcutta High Court.
She insists that she doesn’t mind even if the “real news” is against her. “Justice can never be one sided, it is impartial. Judiciary and media are important pillars in a democracy. If one loses credibility then other pillars also get affected,” he said.
Noting that several cases are pending in the Calcutta High Court, Banerjee urged Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava to see that the cases pending for the last three-four years are disposed of.
He said that there should be more women judges in the High Court. Banerjee said that at present more than 80 fast track courts are functioning in the state. He thanked the High Court for starting a bench at Jalpaiguri in North Bengal.
The Chief Minister said the Calcutta High Court was facing space constraints, and the allotment of eight floors in the nearby new Secretariat building on Strand Road would solve this.
“The building houses 19 departments of the state government. But the first to eighth floors will belong to the Calcutta High Court. Also, 10 acres of land in the Salt Lake area has been earmarked for building an attached building of the High Court,” he added.