Kolkata, August 18: The Kolkata High Court‘s division bench dismissed a petition on Tuesday that challenged the West Bengal police’s verbal order to remove loudspeakers and microphones from state mosques.
While rejecting the petition, Acting Chief Justice Tapobrata Chakraborty and Justice Atarup Banerjee clarified that the court would not issue any orders based solely on the police’s verbal instructions.
The bench noted that the petition was filed based on media reports and that the 4,000 mosques allegedly affected by the verbal order were not parties to the case. Since the court did not hear the mosque representatives, it deemed the petition without merit.
Claims were made that the police were forcibly removing loudspeakers or microphones from religious sites, particularly mosques, without any legal notice. A public interest petition was filed in the Kolkata High Court by an individual represented by senior advocate Kalyan Banerjee, a four-time Trinamool Congress MLA, against this alleged action.
Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari recently dismissed allegations that loudspeakers and microphones were selectively removed from mosques. He stated that over 5,000 loudspeakers had been removed from various religious sites across the state as part of a special police campaign.
Providing statistics, the Chief Minister mentioned that a total of 5,299 loudspeakers were removed from religious sites, including 4,203 from mosques and 1,096 from temples.
He explained that this action was taken in compliance with the Kolkata High Court’s 2020 ruling regarding noise-related laws. Adhikari stated, “If the noise within a religious site remains within permissible limits, there is no issue. The state government has not implemented any new rules and is merely enforcing the Kolkata High Court’s decision made during the previous administration.”
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