Supreme Court of India
New Delhi: In a setback to the West Bengal government, the Supreme Court today upheld the Calcutta High Court’s order directing the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to probe into the Ram Navami day violence in the state.
The Calcutta High Court had asked NIA to look into the six FIRs related to the violence allegedly unleashed on Ram Navami processions in Howrah and Hooghly districts of the state, in which police reportedly did not record bomb attacks during the procession, under Explosive Substances Act.
A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dr Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra, refused to interfere with the Calcutta High Court order after the West Bengal government challenged the High Court order on the ground that transferring the probe to the NIA, “would demoralise the state police”.
The Calcutta High Court, in its order on April 27, 2023, had observed that there was a deliberate attempt on the part of the concerned police not to register any offence under the provisions of the Explosives Substances Act, fighting shy of resorting to the procedure required to be complied with under Section 6(1) of the NIA Act.
The Supreme Court bench said that after the High Court’s order, the Central Government exercised its suo motu powers under Section 6 (5) of the NIA Act to ask the NIA to investigate these cases. The fact-finding team thereafter made a three-day tour of the state in April.
Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, senior law officer for the NIA, told the apex court: “After analyzing the six FIRs I can say that the first FIR has use of Bomb- this is Howrah. In the second FIR, the area is the same but your lordships should mark that it is a suo moto case registered against the unknown person- so FIR by West Bengal police. Same for the third. For fourth, there is a reference to the bomb in Chandan Nagar…We told them (WB govt) that we’re under the mandate of HC, give us papers. We are not being supplied with papers also. This conduct itself debars them.”
– global bihari bureau
