HC rejects plea to haul Abhishek for contempt

kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Monday dismissed a prayer for taking suo motu cognisance of Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee's comments on the judiciary, observing that it does not find the utterances by him to scandalise the authority of the court in any manner.

The court said that upon going through the allegations made in the affidavits in support of the prayer, it does not find "sufficient reason to adopt the extreme measure of issuing a suo motu rule of contempt." Banerjee's remarks were read out in court. Litigant Sushmita Saha Dutta alleged that despite making such comments in public meetings, Banerjee did not apologise. Banerjee at a meeting of workers' organisation in Haldia on Saturday had said: "I am ashamed to say that there are one or two people in the judiciary who are working as cohorts. Not all but only one per cent..." The Trinamool Congress on Monday came out in support of its national general secretary's comment on the judiciary and said it does not tantamount to contempt of court. Senior TMC leader Chandrima Bhattacharya said anyone can speak about the judiciary and slammed Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar for "trying to score brownie points" on the issue. "Abhishek Banerjee had not said anything which amounted to contempt of court. He spoke about the judiciary," Bhattacharya noted.