Jagdeep Dhankhar seeks report on TMC's anti-judiciary remark

|HT|

West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Monday sought a report from chief secretary H K Dwivedi on the anti-judiciary remark of Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Abhishek Banerjee even as two lawyers filed contempt petitions over it. The petitions were dismissed with a warning that Banerjee should be careful while making public statements on the judiciary.

Dhankhar, who is touring north Bengal, told reporters Banerjee “crossed the red line” and made a contemptuous statement.

Dhankhar said Banerjee specifically targeted Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the Calcutta high court, who ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into an alleged recruitment scam although the TMC leader did not name any judge or refer to any specific case while addressing party workers.

TMC leader and minister Chandrima Bhattacharya said Banerjee did not insult the judiciary but only referred to certain instances.

Banerjee on Sunday said he felt ashamed that a small fraction of the judiciary has become minions. “One or two persons are working with an understanding. Not all, only one per cent. They are ordering CBI investigation in every case. They are even ordering stay on ongoing murder probes. Have you ever heard of this? You cannot order a stay on a murder investigation,” Banerjee said in Haldia. As many as 272 cases are being probed by the CBI under the orders of the Calcutta high court. A bulk of these pertains to political violence after TMC won the 2021 assembly polls.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)