West Bengal's ruling party Trinamool Congress will be moving Supreme Court over post-poll violence in state, said sources. “The NHRC report was examined by the Ministry of Home Affairs. The TMC is banking on the documents regarding the pre and post-poll violence that are in its possession and will present these before the Supreme Court,” sources said.
TMC spokesperson and state general secretary Kunal Ghosh alleged that the NHRC had “worked at the behest of the BJP” and submitted “false information” in the report.
The move comes after a five-member bench of the Calcutta High Court on Thursday handed over the investigation of serious crimes like rape and murder in the post-poll violence to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and formed a three-member team to investigate the lesser criminal offences.
The violence after the election had attracted the attention of the nation as BJP had accused the Trinamool of unleashing its thugs to kill party workers, attack women members, vandalise houses, and loot shops and offices belonging to its leaders.
The court also directed the state government to immediately process the compensation for the victims of the post-poll violence.
Accepting the National Human Rights Commission's recommendation, the five-member bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal, Justice I.P.
Mukerji, Justice Harish Tandon, Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Subrata Talukdar directed that the investigation into the violence following the April-May election in Bengal will be conducted by a special team to be set up by the CBI.
The CBI will be investigating into the serious crimes like rape and murder. A separate division bench has been formed to monitor the CBI investigation.
Similarly, the division bench also formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate lesser crimes that happened after the elections.
On May 4 the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had taken suo motu cognisance of the matter and had requested the DIG (Investigation) to constitute a team of officers of the Investigation Division of the Commission to conduct an on-the-spot fact finding investigation.
Later, on July 18, the High Court directed the NHRC to constitute a committee that will examine complaints filed by persons who were allegedly displaced during the post-poll violence in West Bengal. Earlier, the High Court had also constituted a committee comprising members nominated by the NHRC, SHRC and SLSA to coordinate rehabilitation of displaced persons from the Entally constituency.
The Calcutta High Court on August 3 had reserved judgment on a batch of petitions pertaining to the alleged post-poll violence in West Bengal. The Union had submitted before the court that it was willing to extend the services of central investigating agencies such as the CBI and the NIA (National Investigation Agency) pursuant to the court's orders.
