The plea for anticipatory bail by the headmaster of a school in Narendrapur, where some teachers were allegedly attacked by outsiders on January 27, was turned down by an additional district judge of the Alipore court on Tuesday.
Arpan Kumar Chattopadhyay, the 12th additional district judge of the court, refused to accept the plea for anticipatory bail after hearing all sides — the lawyers representing the headmaster, state government and the teachers who were allegedly assaulted.
"The rejection of the bail plea sets the ground for the arrest of the headmaster, who is among the four accused named in the FIR lodged by the teachers with Narendrapur police station," said a senior officer in the Baruipur police district.
"We will start looking for him since he is one of the prime accused in the case."
The FIR also refers to around 50 other accused but they have not been named.
On Monday, Justice Biswajit Basu of Calcutta High Court had wondered aloud why the school's headmaster could not be arrested just because he had filed a plea for anticipatory bail in a lower court.
"It's been over a week (since the alleged assault) and the police have failed to arrest the headmaster only because he has filed an anticipatory bail plea with a court?" Justice Basu had asked.
On Tuesday, pleading for anticipatory bail, the lawyer appearing for the headmaster submitted that one of the teachers of the school had been absconding following allegations that he had raped a student.
A section of teachers targeted the headmaster in his absence, the lawyer said. The headmaster, he said, is a victim of a conspiracy hatched by the teachers, who were out to malign him. The headmaster was in no way involved in the attack on the teachers, the lawyer submitted.
On January 27, a group of youths had allegedly barged into classrooms of the Narendrapur school and attacked a few teachers. The staff room was ransacked and the teachers were kept locked inside till the police rescued them.
The attack followed allegations that a student of the school had been raped by a teacher and the institution had kept the incident under wraps.
A section of the teachers, however, told the police that the youths had arrived at the behest of the headmaster. The headmaster, they said, wanted to force them to withdraw a complaint of irregularities they had lodged against him.
The headmaster denied the allegations.
"The headmaster is the alleged mastermind of the attack. He had let in some hooligans. The high court has said he should be arrested immediately," the advocate representing the state submitted in the Alipore court.
The lawyer representing the assaulted teachers said the headmaster's aim was to ensure that no one protested against him.