Post-poll Violence: SC Grants 4 Weeks to UoI, WB to File Reply on Plea for Court-monitored SIT Probe

The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted four weeks to the Centre and the West Bengal government to file their response on a plea seeking a court-monitored SIT probe into post-poll violence in West Bengal in 2021. A bench of Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Krishna Murari asked the parties to place their stand in writing so the petitioners can respond to it. The top court was hearing a PIL filed by UP-based lawyer Ranjana Agnihotri and social worker Jitender Singh which has also sought a direction to the Centre to impose President’s Rule in West Bengal in view of the deteriorating law and order situation due to the post-poll violence.

Senior advocate Anand Grover, appearing for the West Bengal government, questioned the locus of the petitioner and asked how a person based in Uttar Pradesh related to this case. Grover submitted that the Calcutta High Court was already seized of similar petitions filed by West Bengal residents. All the issues have been taken care of by the high court in similar PILs. I have a serious objection to the locus of the petitioner. People in Bengal have agitated these issues and the high court has passed several orders, Grover said. Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, appearing for the Centre, said only some part of the petitioner’s grievance has been taken care of by the high court. The apex court asked them to place all his objections in an affidavit and said it would hear the case in the last week of September.

The plea had also sought direction to the Centre to deploy armed/paramilitary forces in the aid of the administrative authorities to bring normalcy to the state and to save it from internal disturbances. The plea had said that the PIL has been filed in extraordinary circumstances as thousands of residents of West Bengal are being terrorized, penalised, and tortured by the workers of TMC for supporting the opposition party- Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) during the assembly polls.

The petitioners are espousing the cause of thousands of citizens of West Bengal who are mostly Hindus and are being targeted by Muslims to take revenge for supporting BJP as they want to crush Hindus so that for years to come the power may remain with the party of their choice, the plea had said. The plea had sought from the court directions to the central government to exercise its power conferred by Article 355 and Article 356 keeping in view the deteriorating condition posing a threat to the sovereignty and integrity of India. It had said that soon after the declaration of assembly polls results on May 2, last year the TMC workers and supporters started creating chaos, and unrest and setting the houses and properties of Hindus on fire, looting and plundering their belongings for the simple reason that they had supported BJP in assembly polls.

The plea had said that in an attempt to create terror and disorder in the society at least 15 BJP workers/ sympathisers/supporters have lost their lives and a number of them were seriously injured.

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