TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee has approached the Supreme Court a second time seeking permission to travel abroad for eye treatment, challenging the Calcutta High Court’s August 5 refusal.
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New Delhi: Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee has moved the Supreme Court for a second time seeking permission to travel abroad for eye treatment, challenging the Calcutta High Court’s August 5 order that rejected his request after he declined to appear before a medical board constituted to assess whether he required treatment overseas.
The condition at the heart of the dispute
The restriction on Banerjee’s foreign travel was imposed as a condition attached to a stay on his arrest in a criminal case concerning an allegedly provocative speech made in connection with the recently concluded West Bengal Assembly elections. His ability to travel abroad for medical treatment is therefore not a standalone question but one bound up with the terms on which he has been granted protection from arrest — which is why the courts have treated it as a matter to be balanced against the pendency of the proceedings against him.
The order under challenge
By its order of August 5, the Calcutta High Court dismissed Banerjee’s application, recording that he had declined to appear before the medical board it had set up to evaluate whether overseas treatment was warranted. The High Court reasoned that had he appeared before the board, its opinion could have equipped the court to decide whether treatment abroad was in fact necessary.
The Court framed the question narrowly. Observing that it was not itself a medical expert, it held that the crucial issue at this stage was whether Banerjee required treatment at all, rather than where that treatment ought to be administered. It also declined to accept that he had an absolute right to choose the doctor or the institution at which he would be treated, pointing to the several criminal prosecutions and ongoing investigations pending against him.
The rival positions
Appearing for Banerjee before the High Court, Senior Advocate Rebecca John had submitted that he wished to continue his treatment with the specialist in the United States who had earlier operated on him, and that he was unwilling to undergo treatment at the state-run SSKM Hospital.
The West Bengal government opposed the plea, contending that there was no medical emergency justifying treatment abroad, and that allowing him to travel overseas could affect the investigations underway in the cases against him.
The sequence of orders
The present petition is the latest step in a litigation that has moved back and forth between the two courts over several weeks.
Banerjee first ran into the travel restriction through the High Court’s order of July 20, which refused him permission to fly abroad and instead directed him to undergo treatment at the state-run SSKM Hospital and the Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research (IPGME&R). He challenged that order before the Supreme Court, which, on August 3, disposed of his plea with a request to the High Court to decide the matter expeditiously rather than ruling on the travel question itself.
Acting on that request, the High Court took up the application and, on August 5, dismissed it on the ground that Banerjee had not appeared before the medical board. It is that dismissal which he now assails before the Supreme Court — hence the “second time” that the matter has reached the apex court, though on this occasion against a decision on the merits rather than a request for expeditious hearing.
The petition is yet to be listed for hearing.
Case : Abhishek Banerjee v. State of West Bengal | SLP (Crl) 14489/2026
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