Calcutta HC upholds CID probe, FIR against Tapas Paul

In yet another setback to the Mamata Banerjee government, the Calcutta High Court Thursday directed the filing of a police complaint and a CID probe into Trinamool Congress parliamentarian Tapas Paul's 'kill and rape' remarks.

Rejecting the appeals by Paul and the state government, the court of Justice Nishita Mhatre upheld the order by the single bench of Justice Dipankar Datta, directing a CID probe against the actor-turned-politician.

Paul, who representing Krishnanagar Lok Sabha constituency in Nadia district, had created a nationwide outrage after he was caught on successive tapes exhorting his party men to kill CPI-M activists and threatening to unleash his boys to rape their women.

Thursday's order comes a day after a high court bench directed a CBI probe into the 2013 murder of an independent panchayat member in Birbhum district in which district Trinamool president Anubrata Mondal was named in the first information report.

Justice Mhatre heard the appeals afresh after a division bench of Justice Girish Chandra Gupta and Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty delivered a split verdict.

The judge, however, clarified that the probe by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) will not be monitored by the court and directed the FIR to be filed within three days from the date of judgment.

Notwithstanding the countrywide clamour for Paul's arrest and expulsion from parliament, the Trinamool Congress led by Banerjee had sought to end the matter with an apology which he tendered to his party and the media in July.

Thursday's verdict was welcomed by the opposition.

"The high court has been coming out with successive judgments against the government reflecting the judicial system's growing mistrust on the way this regime has been functioning.

"For the sake of transparency, the state government must, therefore, issue a white paper giving details of where else they have not followed the legal path," state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said.

BJP state unit chief Rahul Sinha said "police and administration was synonymous to the Trinamool" resulting in the courts regularly pulling up the state government.

CPI-M parliamentarian Mohammad Salim said: "What the court ordered today (Thursday) ought to have been done by the police themselves, but because the police follow directions of the Trinamool chief, the court has to intervene.

"If this government doesn't wake up even now, it will continue to be humiliated like this," he said.