Post-poll violence: HC reserves order on PILs

KOLKATA: After the hearings of all post-poll violence cases were completed on Tuesday, the Calcutta High Court reserved order on a set of PILs seeking impartial probe into the alleged incidents.

Senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the Bengal government, during the hearing on Tuesday, pointed out the gross exaggeration of the statements between the Bengali statements made by the victims and the English translation made by the NHRC committee.

The senior counsel also made a reference to the committee member Atif Rasheed, who had previously contested elections on behalf of the BJP.

"He had uploaded an interview with a Superintendent of Police on his Twitter handle on July 9 which indicates that a determination regarding the allegations of post-poll violence had already been made even before the submission of the NHRC committee report," Singhvi argued. Senior counsel Kapil Sibal, appearing on behalf of the SPs of Police during the hearing on Monday, submitted that if the report is to be 'labelled' as a 'NHRC report' then the provisions of the 1993 Act must be made applicable.

Senior Advocate Soumendra Nath Mookerjee, appearing on behalf of the DGP, West Bengal pointed out that out of the 1979 complaints registered by the NHRC committee, 864 complaints had no date mentioned.

"Out of the 72 rape cases registered by the committee, 9 cases do not have dates and 4 cases belong to the period between May 2 and May 5," Mookerjee claimed.