A Calcutta High Court division bench of Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Uday Kumar on Wednesday issued an order asking Justice Amrita Sinha of the court to hear former Trinamul youth leader Kuntal Ghosh first before deciding on whether to stay the proceedings drawn by a CBI court judge.
The CBI court judge had asked Kolkata police to inquire into Ghosh’s allegations that Enforcement Directorate officials were torturing him in jail and putting pressure on him to implicate Trinamul leader Abhishek Banerjee in the alleged irregularities in school recruitments.
The order by the division bench followed a prayer by Ghosh that the single-judge bench of Justice Sinha had stayed the directive of the CBI court without hearing his lawyer.
Ghosh had been vocal about his allegations that ED officers had been pressuring him to implicate Banerjee, nephew of chief minister Mamata Banerjee, in connection with the alleged irregularities in recruitments.
Ghosh had written two letters from jail — one to the CBI judge and another to Hastings police station — alleging that ED officials had been putting “tremendous pressure” on him and forcing him to mention Banerjee as the mastermind of the job scam.
After receiving the letter, the CBI court issued an order asking the detective department of Kolkata police to investigate Ghosh’s allegation.
But the ED moved the bench of Justice Sinha and alleged that Kolkata police officers had been harassing officials of the agency by summoning them repeatedly. Justice Sinha stayed the CBI court’s order.
Ghosh was arrested by the ED in January for his alleged involvement in the job case.
Ghosh’s counsel submitted before the division bench on Wednesday that since the CBI court had issued the order on the basis of a letter from his client, Justice Sinha should have heard his client before issuing a stay on the CBI court’s
order.
The matter will come up for hearing again before Justice Sinha after November 16.