Supreme Court raises question on West Bengal’s situation over ‘political murders’ 

The Supreme Court of India.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court, on Tuesday, hearing petitions seeking a CBI investigation into alleged political murders in West Bengal, raised questions on the prevailing situation in the state.  While hearing the petition filed by advocate and BJP leader Gaurav Bhatia seeking probe into three murders in West Bengal, Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri said, “Much is happening in West Bengal also.”

This comment came in response of Bhatia’s argument that the state police had not arrested all the accused in two of the cases and had closed a third case on the suspicious death of BJP worker Dulal Kumar by ruling it as “suicide”. Bhatia has claimed that the accused were associated with the Trinamool Congress, which is ruling the state.

Quickly replying to Justice Sikri’s remark, senior Congress leader and advocate Kapil Sibal, who was appearing on behalf of West Bengal, said, “Much is happening in the CBI also.” This forced Justice Sikri to say, “That’s why I used the word ‘also’.” Sibal then said, “It’s all political.”

The Bengal government and the CBI have been struggling over the investigation by the central agency in chit-fund scam cases. Earlier this month, CBI officers who went to question the Kolkata Police chief in connection with the scam cases claimed that they were were held hostage by the local police in Kolkata. The incident triggered a massive row between West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and the Centre.

Bhatia alleged that there was a delay of 18 days in the registration of the FIR in the case of death of BJP man Dulal Kumar. Sibal, however, denied that there was any delay in filing the FIR. He added that in two of the cases, the police had already filed chargesheet.

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