KOLKATA: A single-judge Bench of the Calcutta High Court on Thursday rejected the plea of Trinamool Congress General Secretary and the party’s Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha member, Abhishek Banerjee, seeking blanket protection on all future FIRs against him in any case.

 

The single-judge Bench of Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya declined to grant blanket protection to the Diamond Harbour MP on all future FIRs and observed that in cases of additional FIRs in the future, appropriate supplementary pleadings should be filed and the respective complainants should be impleaded.

 

However, at the same time, the single-judge Bench granted relief to Abhishek Banerjee in relation to three FIRs already registered against him, the first at Bhabanipur Police Station on May 27, the second at Kalitala Police Station on June 1 and the third at Bishnupur Police Station on June 16.

 

In the case of these three FIRs, the single-judge Bench granted Abhishek Banerjee, also the nephew of former West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, interim protection from coercive police action including arrest till August 6, the date of the next hearing in the matter.

 

“All these FIRs were registered after the results of the West Bengal Assembly elections this year. In two related matters, the court had already granted interim protection while allowing the investigation in those cases to proceed. If a similar order is passed, where is the difficulty?” Justice Bhattacharyya questioned.

 

To recall, earlier, Abhishek Banerjee was granted similar interim protection in two cases of ongoing probes by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the West Bengal Police — the first being on the Trinamool Congress legislators’ mismatch case and the second being the case of hate-speech registered against him. He had been accused of making violence-inciting statements and even threatening Union Home Minister, Amit Shah at a campaign rally before the recently concluded West Bengal Assembly polls earlier this year.

 

During the hearing on Thursday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the respondents virtually, objected to prayer for blanket protection for the petitioner on all future FIRs and argued that any advance ruling on future FIRs on grounds of political vendetta could not be a reason for cancelling future FIRs.