The Supreme Court on Friday directed that Bengal government shall not take “any coercive steps” until further orders against BJP leaders like Mukul Roy and Kailash Vijayvargiya after the party’s top brass had approached the judiciary complaining of witch hunting of political opponents by the Mamata Banerjee government.
In other words, the BJP leaders can’t be arrested till the court withdraws Friday’s order.
The court also directed the ministry of home affairs (MHA) to file a report in sealed cover on the alleged assault of Kabir Shankar Bose, a BJP spokesman protected by the CISF-SPG, allegedly by Trinamul leaders and activists.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Dinesh Maheshwari and Hrishikesh Mukherjee passed the direction after BJP leaders, Mukul Roy, Kailash Vijayvargiya, Arjun Singh, Pawan Singh, Sourav Singh and Kabir Sankar Bose, had filed separate petitions seeking quashing of multiple criminal cases registered by Bengal police or transfer of the same to some other independent investigating agency like the CBI.
While restraining the Bengal government from any coercive action, the court issued notice to the state government for its response and posted the matter for further hearing after four weeks.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi appearing for Arjun Singh told the bench that in all, 64 cases had been registered against his client after he had switched over to the BJP from the Trinamool Congress.
“What are you saying?” Justice Kaul asked in surprise.
In response to a query from the bench, Rohatgi said the cases had been registered between March 2020 and November 2020 although the said offences, mostly related to rioting under IPC sections 147, 148,149, had occurred in 2019.
Advocate Prashant Kumar, who argued on behalf of Vijayvargiya, said all the cases against him were also false and an attempt to deter his client, who is the all India general secretary of the BJP and an MP from Madhya Pradesh, from entering Bengal.
Mukul Roy’s counsel said he had resigned from Trinamul in 2017 and since then, as many as 19 cases had been filed against him.
Rohtagi intervened and told the court that most of the cases against different leaders of the BJP were identical.
Senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani said his client Kabir Shankar Bose was a Supreme Court lawyer who happened to be the former son-in-law of a powerful Trinamul leader.
“They have filed several cases against me. I’m under threat. I’m now the spokesperson for the BJP. On December 6, I was attacked by TMC activists, including by my ex-father-in-law Kalyan Banerjee. Instead of taking action against them, an FIR has been filed against me (Bose),” he complained.
Then, Justice Kaul asked Jethmalani: “So your case is not exactly similar to the rest?”
The senior counsel said: “I’m a CISF-SPG protectee. The Special Protection Group has also filed its own incident report.”
After hearing the arguments, the court then passed the order restraining the state from taking any coercive steps against the BJP leaders.
