Ambikesh Mahapatra, who had been arrested for circulating an internet joke on chief minister Mamata Banerjee, had thought his ordeal was over 11 years later after the Supreme Court scrapped the section under which he was accused and a court subsequently absolved him.
But no.
While trying to get his passport renewed, the chemistry professor at Jadavpur University was told by police that another case was pending against him. Of assault and snatching Rs 5,000.
The case was apparently filed more than six years ago but Mahapatra said he came to know about it only recently.
The professor said the “new case” had come as a “bolt from the blue” when he applied for renewal of his passport for 10 years, which he had not been able to do for the past decade because of the criminal case against him for allegedly circulating an Internet joke on the chief minister. He had to renew his passport annually so long the case was in court.
“I came to know about the new case accidentally when I applied for renewal of my passport for 10 years thinking that now I am eligible for a normal passport since the charges against me have been dropped,” he said.
Earlier this year, he had applied for a one-year renewal of the passport, like he did in previous years. He went to the passport office on January 12 for a follow-up to his application.
“As I told him (an officer in the passport office) that the court is expected to deliver a judgment dropping the criminal case against him, the officer, who was of the rank of deputy secretary, told me that in such an eventuality I was entitled to a normal renewal. He suggested that I submit a certified copy of the judgment,” Mahapatra told The Telegraph.
The additional sessions judge, 10th court, Alipore, passed an order on January 18, saying: “The discharge petition by the accused petitioner Ambikesh Mahapatra is allowed.”
Mahapatra collected a certified copy of the order and uploaded a soft copy of it, along with an application for normal renewal of the passport, on the online portal of the passport office on January 24.
Thereafter, when he checked the status of his application on the portal, Mahapatra came across a message that said the police verification process was “pending” at the local police station.
“In the third week of February, an officer from the police station came to my home. He wanted me to produce a copy of the January 18 order as proof that the criminal case against me had been dropped. Then he left,” the professor said.
“He called me up a few days later to tell me that I had another case pending against me. In the fourth week of February, he came to my house again. He opened the Kolkata police app on his phone and showed me details of the case for which the police had even filed a chargesheet against me on March 5, 2018.”
According to police records, Mahapatra and seven others have been accused in a case of unlawful assembly, wrongful restraint, theft, voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation.
The alleged incident happened on April 30, 2016, the day of Assembly elections in some parts of Bengal.
“I clearly remember that day as I was contesting the election as an Independent candidate from the Assembly constituency of Behala East. Nothing of that sort had happened that day,” Mahapatra said. Mahapatra stands accused of snatching Rs 5,000 from a man named Subrata Banerjee and assaulting him. Banerjee, according to police records, is a resident of Darirchak village, under RC Thakurani post office and Haridevpur police station.
If convicted, Mahapatra can be sent to jail for three years. This newspaper could not contact Banerjee for his version of events. A criminal lawyer said the police could have summoned Mahapatra in connection with the case under Section 41 of the CrPC.
However, that is the discretion of the investigating agency. It is unusual that Mahapatra did not receive any summons from the court even after the chargesheet was submitted. The court can summon the accused once the chargesheet is filed for an appearance,” the lawyer said.
The second case against Mahapatra reminded many of what happened to Aakar Patel, the Amnesty International India chairman and a known critic of the Narendra Modi regime. Last April, he was stopped from flying abroad because of a CBI lookout circular whose existence he said had never been communicated to him.
Mahapatra said he was looking forward to the renewal of his passport so he could apply for a US visa. His two daughters are in the US. His elder daughter is pursuing a postdoctoral fellowship in chemistry at the University of Texas and his other daughter is pursuing PhD in history at Duke University.
“Now that the police have given an adverse report, I wonder whether the passport would be renewed at all,” Mahapatra said. “We have just acted according to the law. There was a complaint,” said an officer of Haridevpur police station.