Tripura Public Prosecutor quits

Don't want to miss the best from Business Standard?

The Public Prosecutor in Tripura quit on Wednesday after the opposition parties demanded action against him for not opposing the bail plea of 12 persons convicted of murdering a Congress legislator.

The ongoing Budget Session of the Tripura Assembly was disrupted for several days over the issue after President of the Congress's Tripura unit Birajit Sinha raised the matter in the house for the first time last month.

Congress MLA Ratan Lal Nath on Tuesday and Wednesday raised the issue once again saying that during a hearing, prosecutor Abhijit Ghosh told the Tripura High Court that he has no objection if the appellants were granted bail.

However, the high court rejected the convicts' bail petitions later.

"Ghosh, in another case also in the high court, did not oppose the bail plea of a senior civil service officer accused in a rape case," Nath told the house.

State Law and Education Minister Tapan Chakraborty told the house on Wednesday that Ghosh has submitted resignation letter to the government.

Speaker Ramendra Chandra Debnath told the agitated opposition members that as the prosecutor has quit his post, the issue should not be discussed further.

A district court in Tripura in April last year sentenced 12 persons, said to be the members and supporters of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), to life imprisonment for murdering a Congress legislator Parimal Saha and his associate Jitendra Saha on April 7, 1983.

All the 12 convicts submitted a bail petition in the Tripura High Court against the lower court judgement.

Initially, 25 people were charge sheeted but seven of them have since died while one absconded and five were acquitted.

--IANS

sc/lok/dg