Kolkata, June 15: Justice Sougata Bhattacharya of the Kolkata High Court has recused himself from hearing the petition filed by Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee. This petition challenges the West Bengal CID’s raids on two party offices concerning discrepancies in the signatures of legislators.
On June 9, while Abhishek Banerjee and former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee were attending a meeting of the INDIA alliance in New Delhi, two CID teams simultaneously raided the Trinamool Congress offices.
One of the raided offices is located near Mamata Banerjee’s residence on Harish Chatterjee Street in South Kolkata, while the other is on Camac Street in Central Kolkata, where Abhishek Banerjee conducts his work.
A petition was filed against these raids in Justice Bhattacharya’s single-judge vacation bench. However, on Monday, Justice Bhattacharya chose to recuse himself from the case.
He stated that since Abhishek Banerjee had already filed a separate petition before another single-judge bench of the same court, challenging the FIR registered against him by the CID regarding the discrepancies in the legislators’ signatures, he would not hear any related matters.
Justice Bhattacharya expressed concern that conflicting decisions might arise from two single-judge benches on the same issue. He suggested that the petition challenging the CID’s raids on the two Trinamool offices should be heard by Justice Kaushik Chanda’s bench, which is currently addressing the petition challenging the FIR against Abhishek Banerjee.
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