Calcutta High Court on Thursday restrained police from proceeding with 44 criminal cases which had allegedly been lodged illegally at various police stations across Bengal against the leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari.

Justice Rajasekhar Mantha issued the interim order on Adhikari’s petition that alleged that the Bengal government and its agencies were lodging fake criminal cases at various police stations with an intention to harass him and tarnish his political image.

Adhikari’s lawyer alleged that 17 false criminal cases had been registered since his client had approached the court with the petition two weeks back. Earlier, there had been 27 cases.

The counsel demanded that the court strike down the criminal proceedings against the BJP leader.

The state government’s advocate opposed the prayer and alleged that the Nandigram BJP MLA had been summoned 41 times by the police as part of the investigation.

“But he did not turn up once,” the state counsel said.

After hearing both the parties, the judge issued the interim order and fixed the matter for hearing in detail later.

Nod to rallies

Justice Rajasekhar Mantha on Thursday issued two orders, allowing Adhikari to hold a public rally at Hazra on January 12 and Contai on January 21.

After being denied permission by the police to hold the two rallies, Adhikari had moved the high court.

While allowing Adhikari to hold the rallies, the high court said the BJP would have to abide by decibel and other norms set up by the administration. The judge also asked the organisers to clean the venues after the rally was over.

Fresh CBI probe

Justice Mantha asked a court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) to hand over to the CBI the probe into the disappearance of Santu Bhattacharya, a 17-year- old resident of Madanpur in Nadia, in 2017.

After Santu’s disappearance, the state had asked the CID to probe the case. But as the family members of the missing youth were not happy with the progress of the CID investigation, they moved a petition before the high court in 2020. The high court set up a special investigation team the same year to find out the whereabouts of the missing youth.

On Thursday, the matter came up before Justice Mantha when the SIT filed a progress report. But the report could not satisfy the judge and the case was handed over to the CBI.