The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the West Bengal government to submit by Thursday the correspondence on the Netai killings between Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
A Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly gave this direction on the State's special leave petition against an interim order of the Calcutta High Court for a CBI probe into the January 7 killings.
When senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the State, said the High Court order had political overtones, Justice Ganguly told him, “The highest judicial authority in the State has ordered it. Still it doesn't inspire confidence.”
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The Bench then asked counsel to file copies of the letters written by Mr. Chidambaram, warning Mr. Bhattacharjee of there being armed camps in the area, and posted the matter for further hearing on March 3. The letters were part of a petition filed by the Calcutta High Court Bar Association in the High Court.
In its SLP, the State had questioned the February 18 High Court order which directed the government to hand over to the Central Bureau of Investigation the probe into the killing of nine people at Netai near Lalgarh, observing that the CID was unable to conduct an impartial probe owing to the alleged involvement of members and leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
The State said the High Court was not right in holding that the CID could not achieve any breakthrough when, admittedly, it arrested the prime suspects named in the FIR on February 14. The High Court ignored the fact that, irrespective of political colour, it was the State CID which had arrested four persons and recorded several statements. This clearly showed its impartiality.
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It was premature, the State said, to hand over the case to the CBI when the High Court itself was monitoring it and the CID was doing the investigation effectively and impartially as would be found from the first and second investigation reports.
The SLP said the High Court order was violative of the principles laid down by the Supreme Court, in a Constitution Bench judgment, on handing over a probe to the CBI in a case being investigated by the State.