Calcutta HC orders writ petition on Howrah court clashes

KOLKATA/HOWRAH: Calcutta High Court chief justice TBN Radhakrishnan has directed that a suo motu writ petition be registered over the “untoward incidents” on the premises of Howrah district court on Wednesday and issued notices to 12 top state functionaries, including the chief secretary, home secretary, advocate-general, director-general of police, Howrah police commissioner, commissioner of Howrah Municipal Corporation, Howrah district judge and chief judicial magistrate.
The HC move coincided with the National Human Rights Commission also taking suo motu cognizance of media reports on the clashes between lawyers and HMC employees on the court premises and the police action that followed.
On Thursday, when senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya mentioned the incident before the CJ, the latter said he had sought reports from the Howrah district judge, chief judicial magistrate and state chief secretary.
The chief justice went through the reports once they were submitted and marked them as confidential. In a two-page order thereafter, he observed that “court premises are locations which are to be insulated from all sorts of intrusions, except as authorised by law’’. He also directed that the matter be placed before the division bench headed by him for consideration. During the hearing, the state functionaries can be represented by their lawyers.
The NHRC on its part also issued a notice to the DGP seeking a detailed report within four weeks, including action taken against “delinquent police personnel and health status of the victims”. It stated that the “contents of the news reports, if true, raise serious issues of violation of human rights of the victims, who have sustained injuries”.
As a fallout of Wednesday’s incident, lawyers across Bengal have decided to go on a cease-work till Monday.
In Howrah, meanwhile, an ambulance carrying a 73-year-old patient with chest pain was allegedly held up when traffic came to a standstill on Howrah’s M G Road during Friday’s dharna by some 400-450 members of West Bengal Law Clerks’ Association against the “police action” against lawyers. Patient Subal Jana’s family was told to carry him to the hospital since it was not far away, police sources said.