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The Calcutta High Court on Friday set aside the Centre's decision to deport Sonali Bibi and Sweety Bibi, residents of Birbhum district in West Bengal, along with their families to Bangladesh after terming them as "illegal immigrants". The court directed the Centre to ensure that the six deported citizens are brought back to India within a month. The court also rejected the central government's appeal to grant temporary stay on the order. In July this year, PTI had visited both families in the Paikar area of Murarai, Birbhum post the deportation of the suspects and reported on the plight of the members living on the Indian side of the border. A division bench of Justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Reetobroto Kumar Mitra passed two orders in connection with a Habeas Corpus petition filed by Bhodu Sheikh who claimed that her daughter Sunali, who is currently nine months pregnant, along with her husband, Danesh Sheikh, and five-year-old son hailing from Murarai in Birbhum, were detained
A division bench of Calcutta High Court came down heavily on a trial court judge for ex parte dismissal of a suit for divorce on the grounds of cruelty and desertion sought by the appellant-husband. The bench comprising Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharya and Justice Uday Kumar, in an order passed on May 22, observed that the trial court judge, by the impugned judgment, overlooked the fact that the wife (respondent) did not adduce any evidence of her own despite having filed a written statement and also did not cross-examine the husband. That apart, it transpires even on a cursory perusal of the impugned judgment that the learned judge proceeded entirely on a tangential perception of his own, without adverting at all to the materials on record. The trial court passed an ex parte decree in February 2018 against a matrimonial suit filed in 2015. The Calcutta High Court bench said that a decree of divorce on the grounds of cruelty is hereby granted to the husband against the wife. The be
The Calcutta High Court will on April 28 take up for hearing appeals challenging the termination of around 32,000 jobs of primary teachers. The matter was mentioned on Monday before a division bench, comprising justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Partha Sarathi Chatterjee, before which the appeals were assigned by Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam after another bench released the matter. The division bench said that the appeals by the West Bengal Board of Primary Education and others, including some of those who were recruited, challenging the termination of jobs of primary teachers by a single bench, will appear before it on April 28 for hearing. Releasing the matter from its court on April 7, a division bench comprising justices Soumen Sen and Smita Das De directed that the appeals be placed before Chief Justice Sivagnanam for assignment to a different bench. The division bench cited "personal reason" of Justice Sen for releasing the matter from its list for hearing. A single bench of
The parents of the doctor who was raped and murdered at the RG Kar hospital moved the Calcutta High Court on Thursday, seeking a fresh investigation into the crime. Expressing a lack of confidence in the ongoing probe into the incident that led to huge protests, they prayed for a direction for a fresh investigation into the rape and murder of their daughter. Justice Tirthankar Ghosh asked their lawyer to add the CBI, which is probing the case, as a party in the petition and mention the matter again before the court on Monday. The on-duty postgraduate trainee doctor's body was found in the seminar room of the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9. The Sealdah court on December 13 granted bail to RG Kar Medical College and Hospital ex-principal Sandip Ghosh and Tala police station's officer-in-charge Abhijit Mondal in the case. They were granted bail as the CBI failed to file charge sheets against them within the 90-day statutory period, according to their lawyers. While
Ten government hospitals in Delhi have begun an indefinite strike, halting all elective services on Monday, in response to the recent rape and murder of a resident doctor in Kolkata. The Maulana Azad Medical College, RML Hospital, Lady Hardinge Medical College, VMMC and Safdarjung Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, GTB, IHBAS, Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Medical College, and National Institute of TB and Respiratory Diseases Hospital are participating in the strike, which began at 9 am, according to a statement by the Resident Doctors' Associations (RDA). According to the RDA, during the indefinite strike, all outpatient departments (OPDs), operation theatres (OTs), and ward duties will be shut, but emergency services will continue to operate as usual, ensuring that urgent patient care remains unaffected. The move comes in response to a call from the Federation of Resident Doctors' Association (FORDA) after a postgraduate trainee doctor was raped and murdered at the RG Kar Medical ..
The Calcutta High Court has directed the West Bengal government to ensure one per cent reservation for transgender persons in all public employment in the state. Noting that the state government adopted a policy of equal treatment in employment to transgenders, the court said the reservation has, however, not yet been made for them. Justice Rajasekhar Mantha directed the chief secretary of the West Bengal government to ensure one per cent reservation for transgenders in all public employment. The high court order was passed on a petition by a transgender person, who succeeded in the Teachers' Eligibility Test (TET) 2014 and also in the TET 2022, but was not called for counseling or interview. In the order passed on Friday, Justice Mantha noted that the Supreme Court had declared in a 2014 case that hijras' and eunuchs, apart from binary genders, be treated as "third gender" for the purpose of safeguarding their rights under Part III of the Constitution. The apex court had also uph
The Calcutta High Court on Thursday expressed satisfaction with the progress of the CBI's probe into allegations of crimes against women and land grabbing in West Bengal's Sandeshkhali. The court permitted the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to be added as a party to the case, following its application. Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam, along with Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya, reviewed the CBI's report and granted the agency's request to keep the details confidential. The court had on April 10 directed the CBI to probe the allegations of crimes against women and land grabbing in Sandeshkhali and directed it to file a progress report on Thursday. The court, which is monitoring the investigation, had also directed the central agency to probe alleged illegal conversion of agricultural land into waterbodies for pisciculture after conducting a thorough inspection of revenue records and physical inspection of land alleged to have been converted. Holding that its presence will assi
The first under-river metro tunnel inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 6 in Kolkata might not have become a reality today had a judge not taken a keen interest in it, experts associated with the project said. Justice Dipankar Datta, currently in the Supreme Court, was a Calcutta High Court judge in 2012, when a difference in opinion between the Ministry of Railway and the West Bengal government brought the under-the-river project to a deadlock. "The way Justice Dipankar Datta handled the whole case and cleared all hurdles one after the other is commendable. I believe that Hon'ble Justice Dutta should also be heartily remembered for the successful completion of this under-river tunnel, which is among the most prestigious and innovative projects in the country," Tamal Biswas, Project Manager, Afcons Infrastructure Limited, said. In 2008, the Ministry of Urban Development and the West Bengal government collaborated to constitute a special-purpose vehicle, the Kolkata .
The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the Calcutta High Court's April 13 order directing the West Bengal police not to lodge any FIR against CBI and Enforcement Directorate officers probing the school jobs-for-bribes scam. A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices P S Narasimha and J B Pardiwalam, which decided to hear the plea on April 24, also stayed the direction of a single judge bench of the high court that TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee and Kuntal Ghosh, an accused in the case, can be questioned by the ED and the CBI and such "interrogation should be made soon." "The petition was in the mentioning list. Dr A M Singhvi has adverted to the contents of the order and the directions passed by which the ED and CBI have been directed to file a report with respect to a probe in connection with a public speech by Abhishek Banerjee. List on April 24, 2023. Till the next date of listing, there shall be stay on all action against petitioner in relation to the directions ...