Kolkata: A single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court on Friday extended the interim protection from coercive police actions, including arrest for Trinamool Congress General Secretary and the party’s Lok Sabha member, Abhishek Banerjee, in the ongoing Criminal Investigation Department (CID) enquiry in the case of mismatch in the signatures of some Trinamool Congress legislators on a document pertaining to appointments of some crucial slots in the West Bengal Assembly that are reserved for the Opposition bench.
The earlier interim protection to Abhishek Banerjee, the nephew of the former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, expired on Friday, following which the single-judge bench of Justice Kaushik Chanda extended the interim protection for another month.
Earlier, the Diamond Harbour MP had approached the Calcutta High Court with a petition for scrapping the FIR registered against him by the CID in the legislators’ signature mismatch case.
The matter came up for hearing on Friday and by the end of the hearing Justice Chanda extended the interim protection for Abhishek Banerjee by one more month.
The Trinamool Congress General Secretary has already been questioned twice by CID officials in this matter.
The CID inquiry relates to mismatches in signatures of several Trinamool legislators on a resolution concerning appointments to Opposition bench slots in the West Bengal Assembly.
Last month, Abhishek Banerjee wrote to Speaker Rathindra Bose naming Sovandeb Chattopadhyay as Leader of the Opposition, Nayna Bandopadhyay and Asima Patra as Deputy Leaders, and Firhad Hakim as Chief Whip of the Trinamool Legislative Party.
The Speaker insisted that a resolution signed by Trinamool legislators endorsing the names be submitted along with Abhishek Banerjee’s letter.
The resolution was later submitted, but expelled Trinamool legislators Ritabrata Banerjee and Sandipan Saha pointed out mismatches in some signatures.
The Assembly Secretariat then handed over the probe to the CID.
At present, the CID is probing against Abhishek Banerjee in two matters, the first of which the legislators’ signatures mismatch case and the second is the case where he is accused of making violence inciting statement and even threatening the Union Home Minister Amit Shah at the campaign rally before the recently concluded West Bengal Assembly polls.
Abhishek Banerjee had submitted his voice samples at a district court in North 24 Parganas in relation to the hate speech case.
(IANS)
