West Bengal Court Issues Fresh Summons to Abhishek Banerjee for Voice Sample Collection

Kolkata, July 1: A court in the North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal issued a notice on Wednesday to Abhishek Banerjee, the General Secretary of the Trinamool Congress and a Member of Parliament. He has been summoned to appear in court for CID officials to collect his voice samples. Banerjee is accused of making inflammatory statements during an election rally and threatening Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

The Judicial Magistrate at the Bidhannagar Court in Salt Lake has directed the MP from Diamond Harbour to appear by 10 AM on July 8, so that CID officials can collect his voice samples in the presence of the magistrate and forensic experts.

Banerjee was supposed to appear in the district court for this matter on Tuesday. However, he did not show up as his petition challenging the district court’s previous order for voice sample collection was being heard by a single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court.

On Tuesday, Justice Tirthankar Ghosh of the single-judge bench refused to hear Banerjee’s plea for relief from providing voice samples. He stated that since Banerjee had already received interim protection from arrest and strict police action from another single-judge bench of the same court, there was no need for new protection to avoid providing voice samples.

Justice Ghosh also mentioned that the court cannot dictate to an investigative agency which method to adopt for their investigation. Following this, Justice Ghosh recused himself from further hearings in the case.

The matter has now been referred to Acting Chief Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty of the Calcutta High Court, who will determine which new bench will hear the case.

Previously, Banerjee had received interim protection from arrest and police action from Justice Sougata Bhattacharya’s single-judge bench at the Calcutta High Court. However, this bench also instructed Banerjee to fully cooperate with the investigative agency and advised the CID to inform the court if the Trinamool Congress General Secretary fails to provide necessary cooperation in the investigation.