The Calcutta High Court ordered a joint SIT of the CBI and West Bengal Police to investigate four cases against BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, while quashing 15 FIRs and lifting his earlier protection from new cases.
Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has ordered that four cases registered against BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari be transferred to a joint Special Investigation Team (SIT) consisting of officials from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the West Bengal Police.
The order was passed by Justice Jay Sengupta on Friday while deciding on three cases between the BJP leader and the State of West Bengal.
In his ruling, Justice Sengupta lifted the protection earlier granted to Adhikari in 2022, which had prevented the registration of any fresh FIRs against him without prior permission of the High Court.
The court also went a step further and quashed FIRs filed against Adhikari in 15 different cases that had been registered across the state at various times.
Back in December 2022, Justice Rajasekhar Mantha had issued an order granting protection to Suvendu Adhikari, then directing that
“the state police not to register any more FIRs against him without the high court’s permission.”
During the hearings, Adhikari had submitted before the court that
“several FIRs had been registered against him in different police stations of the state to prevent him from performing his function as a people’s representative at the instance of the ruling dispensation in the state.”
The High Court’s latest judgment effectively ends that earlier protection and hands over the probe in the four remaining cases to a joint team of CBI and state police, ensuring supervision from both central and state investigating agencies.
The decision is seen as a major development in the ongoing political and legal tussle between the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly and the ruling Trinamool Congress government.
With this order, Justice Sengupta’s bench has sought to strike a balance between ensuring a fair investigation and maintaining judicial oversight over politically sensitive cases involving a senior opposition leader.
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