The Bengal government on Tuesday moved a petition before a division bench of Calcutta High Court to challenge an order issued by a single bench which had restrained investigators from taking any further action against Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari in five criminal cases.

On Monday, Justice Rajasekhar Mantha had directed the investigators not to take coercive measures against Adhikari or arrest him in the cases lodged by the state authorities since his defection from the Trinamul Congress to the BJP in December last year.

The division bench on Tuesday accepted the state’s petition.

One of the five cases dealt with the alleged murder of a former security guard of Adhikari.

The CID had been probing the murder case on the basis of a complaint filed by the victim’s wife.

In its petition before the division bench, the state claimed that proceedings of murder cases could not be stopped and Justice Mantha had issued the order without giving proper hearing to the government.

In the past few months, five criminal cases were initiated against Adhikari, at Contai, Nandigram, Panskura and Tamluk in East Midnapore and Maniktala in Calcutta.