WB Govt Moves Calcutta High Court on Post-Poll Violence Order

The West Bengal government on Sunday, 20 June, moved the Calcutta High Court to recall an order by a five-judge Bench, asking the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to visit post-poll violence areas in the state.

The five-judge Bench – comprising Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Jindal, Justice Indra Prasanna Mukherjee, Justice Soumen Sen, Justice Harish Tandon, and Justice Subrata Talukder – was hearing a plea filed by BJP’s Priyanka Tibrewal on Sunday, who lost in the Assembly polls from Entally in Kolkata.

Tiberwal alleged that a number of people had fled their homes to save their lives from the post-poll violence and were unable to return home. She had added that the state had failed to maintain law and order and filed false affidavits to “save its neck".

The Bench asked the NHRC to suggest “steps to be taken to ensure confidence of the people that they can peacefully live in their houses and carry on their occupation or business to earn their livelihood” and submit a comprehensive report by 30 June.

“In our view, this exercise of filing of affidavit and counter affidavit will continue. It may not lead us anywhere because the state from the very beginning had been denying everything, but the facts…are different,” observed the Bench.

The court observed, “The Committee shall examine all the cases and, maybe, by visiting the affected areas and submit a comprehensive report to this Court about the present situation and also the steps to be taken to ensure confidence of the people that they can peacefully live in their houses and also carry on their occupation or business to earn their livelihood. The persons prima facie responsible for crime and the officers who maintained calculated silence on the issue be pointed out.”

West Bengal had witnessed a spell of incidents of violence following election results on 2 May, where the Trinamool Congress had a landslide victory of 214 votes out of 292 seats.

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