Bengal govt faces Calcutta HC ire for unnecessarily resisting public meetings of Oppn

The West Bengal government on Thursday faced the ire of the Calcutta High Court’s single –judge bench of Justice Jay Sengupta for “unnecessarily” creating hurdles for the opposition parties in the state for organising public rallies.

Lashing out at the state government counsel on this count, Justice Sengupta observed that the attempts to prevent the opposition from conducting public meetings are utter childish acts.

“This is not a police state. Nor emergency has been declared in the state, so that the state can apply Section 144 as per its whims. You cannot fight like kids in preventing the opposition activities in such a manner,” Justice Sengupta observed.

He made this observation while hearing a petition from the leader of the opposition in West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari challenging a decision of the police administration to disallow a public meeting of BJP at Khejuri in East Midnapore district.

The single- judge bench also allowed the leader of the opposition to conduct that rally at the same place on August 26.

The meeting was originally scheduled on August 19. But that meeting was cancelled at the last moment as the district police administration imposed Section 144 at the venue of the meeting just a day before on August 18. Thereafter, Adhikari postponed the meeting date to August 26. However, this time the police refused to give permission following which the leader of the opposition approached the Calcutta High Court.

On Thursday, Justice Sengupta also observed that the district police did not follow the appropriate legal provisions while imposing Section 144. According to him, Section 144 was imposed without stating the reason for the same.

“This is also against a verdict of the Supreme Court. Section 144 cannot be imposed in such a manner without stating any reason and that too just a day before the meeting,” Justice Sengupta observed.