KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court on Friday appointed retired judge Manjula Chellur to oversee the work of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the court to probe allegations of post-poll violence in West Bengal.
Chellur is a former chief justice of Kerala High Court, Calcutta High Court and Bombay High Court. She is also the first woman to hold that position in Calcutta High Court. On August 19, a five-judge bench of the high court said the working of the SIT would be “overviewed by a retired judge of the Supreme Cour.” The court has already put in place a three-member SIT comprising three IPS officers of the West Bengal cadre.
The court on Friday said justice Chellur was appointed as the SIT head as no retired judge of the apex court was available. Justice Chellur is known as an “upright judge”. In 2017, she told protesting doctors in Maharashtra that they were not “factory workers’’ and if they were so scared of being beaten up by the kin of patients, they must resign and stay at home.
On Thursday, the state government appointed 10 IPS officers to assist the SIT in investigating allegations of arson and looting. The CBI on Friday submitted an interim report to a Rampurhat court in Birbhum in connection with the murder of BJP worker Manoj Jaiswal. ‘’We submitted a report on two suspects Mainuddin Sheikh and Imran Sheikh who are at large,’’ said a CBI officer.
A team of the Central probe agency went to the Presidency Jail to interrogate eight accused who were arrested in connection with the murder of BJP worker Abhijit Sarkar in Kolkata’s Kankurgachi. CBI also petitioned in a Birbhum court for the psychological examination of Lakshmi Bagdi, who was arrested in connection with the murder of BJP worker Mithun Bagdi.