TMC MP deletes posts; won’t act against him, state tells HC
Times of India | 21 August 2024
Kolkata: Trinamool Congress’s Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Sekhar Roy on Tuesday told Calcutta High Court he had deleted the contentious posts on X that had prompted Kolkata Police to summon him for spreading misinformation, adding that he had spoken to the cops about this. The state told the HC that no coercive action would be taken against Roy.
The HC recorded that Roy had withdrawn his three posts on social media on the RG Kar rape and murder.Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj held that the decision was arrived at on the basis of an agreement between the Trinamool MP and the state, which was why the court was not getting into the matter.
Senior state standing counsel Amitesh Banerjee submitted that the state would submit a report during Wednesday’s hearing. Banerjee also submitted that govt was not going to take any coercive step against the MP.
Complainant Md Adnan had lodged the FIR against Roy based on his posts on X. The MP’s counsel, Abhishek Haldar, submitted that Roy had on Aug 13, Aug 16 and Aug 18 put up posts expressing solidarity with the protests. Haldar wanted to know whether police could question the neta on the post made on Aug 18 based on an FIR lodged a day earlier.
The counsel submitted that his client received the summons immediately after the three posts. Roy sought time to appear for police questioning, citing his ailments. The counsel pointed out that a second summons reached Roy soon after he replied to the first one, asking him to respond within 45 minutes.
Banerjee told the court that the police had a talk with Roy, who said he would delete the tweets. The state counsel submitted that police wouldn’t proceed on the matter and close the case.
Roy later said: “In my 58 years of politics, I have never seen such protests where women came out in large numbers, their children in their arms and posters in their hands. I am not budging from my standpoint. The people are never wrong, sometimes we politicians tend not to understand them.” He added: “I have a conscience, I cannot remain quiet. But I have never said a word on TMC.”
TMC’s former Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh said: “I had said on day one that he had got carried away by emotion and shared some wrong information. Kolkata Police was never going to arrest him. Why will they? It was a wrong notion. Today he deleted the posts. In these trying times, if a representative of the governing party shares some unverified information, it sends a very wrong message to the public.”