Hearing on Bengal Governor's defamation suit against CM Mamata Banerjee rescheduled for July 15

Kolkata: The hearing on the defamation suit filed by West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been rescheduled to July 15.

The Governor’s counsel, Dhiraj Trivedi said that while the matter came up for hearing at the bench of Justice Krishna Rao on Wednesday, he argued that there is no need for making the media houses parties in the case as was directed by the court earlier on July 3 on the grounds that the reports by these media houses were the basis of the Governor’s defamation suit.

Trivedi claimed that he would be able to open “Pandora’s Box” in the matter without making the media house parties in the matter.

The matter first came up for hearing on July 3. However, on that day, the court directed that the media houses whose reports were the basis of the defamation should be made parties in the case. Accordingly, July 4 was scheduled as the next date of hearing.

However, when the matter came up for hearing again on July 4, Trivedi drew the attention of the court that the hearing in the matter had not been enlisted as yet in the records of the Calcutta High Court.

Thereafter, Justice Rao adjourned the hearing and fixed July 10 as the next date of hearing. Finally, the matter again has been scheduled for a hearing on July 15, when the court is expected to give some interim directions in the matter.

Besides the Chief Minister, Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh and the two newly elected ruling party legislators namely Sayantika Banerjee from Baranagar and Reyat Houssen Sarkar from Bhagawangola have been named in the suit.

Ghosh had been included as a party in view of some of his comments about the Governor made to a particular media house. Similarly, the names of two newly elected MLAs have been included because of the comments made by them about the Governor to media persons over their swearing-in function.

The defamation suit has been filed over some comments made by the Chief Minister recently while expressing her displeasure over the confusion regarding the oath-taking ceremony of two newly-elected party MLAs. She had backed their decision of not accepting the Governor’s invitation to go to Raj Bhavan and attend the oath ceremony there.

“Why will the two newly-elected MLAs go to the Raj Bhavan? As it is, after what has happened at Raj Bhavan, women are scared to go there. I have received complaints,” the Chief Minister said then.