West Bengal: The West Bengal government on Wednesday approached the Supreme Court seeking urgent listing of its plea hallenging a Calcutta High Court order to transfer to the CBI the probe into an attack on Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials in Sandeshkhali on January 5.
"You move an application. The CJI takes note of (urgent listing) applications during lunch hour. He will order listing of the plea," Justice Sanjiv Khanna said responding to the plea.
At the outset, the plea was mentioned by senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for the West Bengal government, before a bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta.
Yesterday, Calcutta High Court issued an order for a CBI investigation into Sheikh Shahjahan's involvement in the Sandeshkhali incident, which includes allegations of sexual harassment against women and land grabbing. This directive follows the arrest of Sheikh Shahjahan, a former TMC leader, in connection with these incidents.
The court had also mentioned that the CID should handover Shahjahan to CBI and all the documents by 4:30 pm same day. The division bench of Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam of Calcutta High Court had ordered that three FIRs of Nazat and Basirhat police stations should be probed by the central agency.
However, Following the court’s order CBI officers along with central forces have reached Bhabani Bhaban where Shahjahan is kept and even after waiting for over two hours had to return empty handed as CBI sources said that the CID refused to handover Shahjahan as the state government had moved Supreme Court challenging the order of High Court.
Notably, on January 5, ED officers were attacked and mobbed by people after they went to raid Shahjahan’s house in connection to multi-crore ration distribution scam.
The January 5 incident led to violent protests by the villagers against Shahjahan and alleged that he forcibly took lands of the villagers and turned it into fisheries and also used to sexually harass women.
