Calcutta High Court on Friday stayed orders passed by two judicial magistrates of a court in Tamluk allowing the state government to withdraw criminal cases against 13 Trinamul Congress supporters accused of murders.

The killings had taken place on March 21 in 2007 in East Midnapore’s Nandigram.

Hearing a petition moved last week by Nandigram resident Niranjan Adhikari challenging the orders of the lower court, a division bench headed by Chief Justice T.B.N. Radhakrishnan held on Friday that the judiciary should not indulge any government to withdraw criminal cases against murder accused. The division bench then stayed the orders of the Tamluk court.

The then Left Front government had lodged criminal cases against the 13 Trinamul activists accusing them of murdering four persons.

The murdered people included a cop also. The two separate incidents were during the anti-land acquisition movement in 2007.

Based on complaints filed by families of the deceased, the then government had lodged cases against the 13 accused. While a judicial magistrate’s court in Tamluk was holding trial for a case involving nine accused, another judicial magistrate was dealing with the case wherein four had been accused of murder.

Earlier this year, the state government had moved the lower courts to withdraw the cases against the 13 accused. The two judicial magistrate courts in Tamluk had allowed withdrawal of the cases and the orders were subsequently challenged in the high court last week.