Calcutta High Court on Monday asked the state government to file an affidavit clarifying why it scrapped the Centre's Common Services Centre programme in Bengal in 2020.

As part of its e-governance initiative, the Union government had launched the programme to provide information access to all rural citizens on delivery of public services run by it. The programme was also introduced to make quality education and skill upgrade accessible to all.

Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam's division bench sought the Centre's affivadit of its allegation against the state government, and the state government's affivadit on whether it ran a similar scheme or what its future plan was on the issue. The matter will be heard after three weeks.

Monday's order followed a recent public interest litigation by BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar alleging the state government in 2020 had decided not to run central government's CSC programme in Bengal.

Appearing for petitioner Majumdar, advocate Nilanjan Bhattacharya said the central scheme was introduced in 2015 so that rural people could have easy access to educational, technical and financial services under central schemes.

"The common man had been getting the services through 250 centres. But in 2020, the state government stopped the scheme in the state. As a result, nearly 40,000 people working under the scheme became jobless, " said Bhattacharya.

Additional solicitor-general Ashok Chakrabarti said: "The state's decision was contrary to provisions laid down in the Constitution."

Nawsad case

A division bench headed by Justice Debanshu Basak of Calcutta High Court on Monday granted conditional anticipatory bail to ISF MLA Nawsad Siddique, who moved court apprehending arrest in connection with a complaint lodged by a woman in Domkal alleging the MLA raped her by falsely assuring her of marriage. The court gave anticipatory bail but asked Siddique to meet the investigating officer of the case twice a week.