The Supreme Court on Monday stayed a Calcutta High Court order for a CBI probe into allegations of custodial torture made by two women who were arrested during the protests over the RG Kar rape and murder in September.

The bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, which stayed theNovember 6 order for CBI investigation, also directedthat the proceedings of the Special Investigation Team that was set up by the State on October 5 to probe the allegations of torture be kept in abeyance.

The complainants —Rebeka Khatun Molla and Rama Das — were arrested under various provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act in a case registered at Falta police station, in South 24-Parganas, on September 4.

The bench of Justice Kant and Justice Bhuyan askedthe Bengal government to submit a list of seven IPS officers from the Bengal cadre who could be included in a fresh Special Investigation Team. The seven officers, including at least five women officers, should not be domiciled in the State.

The case will next come up for hearing on November 18.

The court on Monday issued notices to the complainant women for their response to the State’s appeal.

The bench passed thedirections on a petitionfiled by the State seeking an urgent stay on the high courtorder for a CBI probe. The State was represented bysenior advocates KapilSibal and Gopal Sankarnarayan.

During the hearing, Sibal submitted that directions for the transfer of investigations to the CBI are being passed without following the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in various judgments.

The guidelines state that such directives can only be passed in exceptional circumstances.

According to the State, the allegations of custodial torture seemed fictitious as the accused never raised any complaint of custodial torture in the trial court.

The State “in all fair-ness” still constituted a two-member Special Investigation Team to examine the allegations.

The bench after hearing the State’s submissions observed that the allega-tions need to be examined to find out whether the accused are victims of custodialtorture.