HC single bench allows April 30 meet, div bench recuses self from hearing state appeal plea
Times of India | 30 April 2025
Kolkata: A division bench of Calcutta High Court late on Tuesday recused itself from hearing an appeal petition by the state challenging a single bench order on holding a ‘Sanatani Dharma Sammelan' at Contai on April 30, the day the CM is scheduled to inaugurate the Jagannath temple in Digha.
The state had moved a stay application before the bench of justices Soumen Sen and Smita Das De after the single bench on Tuesday afternoon allowed the sammelan, specifying that not more than 3,000 people would be allowed at the venue at a time.
The division bench didn't hear the appeal petition on the grounds that the matter was not assigned to the bench by the HC Chief Justice.
The state wrote to Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam to set up a bench on an urgent basis on Tuesday night, citing that there would be law and order problems en route to Digha on Wednesday. There had been no response from the office of the CJ till around 9.10pm on Tuesday. The state may move the bench presided over by the CJ on the day of the event.
Earlier in the day, the single bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh, while passing the order, found the approach of the inspector-in-charge of Contai police station "disturbing". Justice Ghosh took exception to the IC's approach while communicating his rejection of the application/intimation by the petitioners for the programme.
"It is very disturbing to see the approach of the IC, Contai police station who must know that political minorities are also citizens of India who are to be treated equally," Justice Ghosh observed.
He held that the reasons assigned by Contai police in the reply on April 25 had "overtones of political bias rather than incapacity of the police to handle the crowd".
"Whether the ‘dharma sammelan' would be a religious congregation or under a political garb a religious programme is not the look out of the IC, Contai," Justice Ghosh observed.