A petitioner in West Bengal post-poll violence case on Tuesday approached the Calcutta High Court raising questions why the Special Investigation Team (SIT) is not functioning as per the instructions of the court.
The five-judge bench of the High Court on August 19 ordered the constitution of the SIT comprising IPS officers Soumen Mitra, Suman Bala Sahoo and Ranbir Kumar to look into the allegations other than murder and sexual assault. The High Court had said the working of the SIT shall be “overviewed by a retired Hon’ble Judge of Hon’ble Supreme Court, for which separate order shall be passed after taking his/her consent”.
Ravi Shankar Chatterjee, counsel for petitioner Kashinath Biswas, told the bench of Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal that more than 10 days have passed but the State government has not taken steps for the functioning of the three-member SIT.
The Court observed that it was aware that the SIT was not functioning and added that if required steps would be taken. In the order, the Court had directed both the CBI and the SIT to file a status report to it within six weeks.
CBI files 10 more FIRs
The CBI filed 10 more FIRs taking the number of cases to 31.
Teams of CBI officials visited different parts of the State including Nandigram, where an FIR was registered on Tuesday. The officials visited the residence of Debabrata Majhi in Nandigram who suffered injures allegedly on May 3 and died on May 13. The CBI officials also spoke with the officials of the Nandigram police station.
Nandigram was one of the most bitterly contested seats where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee contested against BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari. Ms. Banerjee lost the polls by a narrow margin of 1,956 votes.
