KOLKATA: Dismissing an appeal by the Bengal government, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Monday upheld a single bench order that directed the CBI to investigate the murder of Tapan Kandu, a Congress councillor of Jhalda municipality in Purulia district.
The bench, headed by Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava, said that no case for interference is made out as it does not find any error in the order of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha "We are of the opinion that the circumstances which are noted by the learned single judge in respect of the lapses on the part of the investigating agency, the nature and circumstances of the case and the legal position which has been taken note of, fully justify the direction which has been issued in the impugned order," the division bench observed.
The CBI has already taken over the investigation and substantial progress has been made, the counsel representing the agency had submitted before the court.
Kandu was shot dead near his home in Jhalda town on March 13 evening.
The bench, also comprising Justice R Bharadwaj, said that Justice Mantha, before passing the order for CBI probe on April 4, had called for two reports from the superintendent of police of Purulia district regarding the investigation by the state police and perused the case diary.
The direction to hand over the investigation to CBI was issued by the single judge after taking note of the fact that the main accused in the case are police officers and a leader of the ruling party and, therefore, investigation and prosecution by the state police would not send a proper message, the court observed.
The single bench had on April 4 noted that the person, "who is stated by the complainant to have facilitated the crime, i.e. the Inspector-in-Charge of Jhalda Police Station, Sanjib Ghosh, has not been taken into custody till now and was performing his official duties".
Justice Mantha had also said that political rivalry between Tapan Kandu and TMC's Dipak Kandu was commonly known and that the latter had contested on the ruling party ticket against the deceased, who was a Congress candidate, and had lost to him.
It was also taken into account by the single bench that the SP of Purulia district, S Selvamurugan, had held a press conference and given a clean chit to Sanjib Ghosh a day before the order of the single judge was passed.
The division bench said that Justice Mantha had also taken note of the aspect that the death of Kandu would have "tilted the balance of control of power" for the Jhalda municipality in favour of the ruling party, as both the Congress and the TMC won five seats each in the municipal elections, while two seats went to Independents.
Kandu's wife Purnima, who was also elected a councillor on Congress ticket in Jhalda municipality, had moved the high court seeking that the investigation be handed over to an independent agency, alleging bias and misdirected probe by the state police.
She alleged that Ghosh had taken recourse to threats to make Kandu change his political affiliation in favour of the ruling party.
Moving the appeal, Advocate General S N Mookherjee had submitted that there is no allegation against the investigating officer.
Praying that there was no justification to hand over the investigation to the CBI, he said that as per the case diary, it is a case of sibling rivalry.