Kolkata: A single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court on Thursday gave conditional approval for a political programme of former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at Sreerampore in Hooghly district on Friday.
The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress faction has planned a political programme at Sreerampore on Friday, where the main speaker will be the former CM. The faction also wanted to first organise a public meeting at Sreerampore, to be followed by a rally.
But, as the police denied permission for the programme, the Trinamool Congress faction approached the Calcutta High Court seeking nod for the same.
The matter came up for hearing before the Calcutta High Court’s single-judge bench of Justice Saugata Bhattacharya on Thursday, and at the end of the hearing, Justice Bhattacharya gave conditional approval for conducting the rally at Sreerampore.
However, despite allowing the Mamata Banerjee-led faction to conduct the public meeting there, Justice Bhattacharya’s bench did not give permission for the rally. The court accepted the argument of the police that, if the rally proposed from Mahesh to Sreerampore Court was permitted, it would create heavy traffic congestion on the busy Grand Trunk Road.
Justice Bhattacharya has also imposed some restrictions on the public meeting at Sreerampore to be addressed by Mamata Banerjee. The court has fixed the time limit for the meeting from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. At the same time, the court has specified that not more than 2,000 people would assemble at the meeting venue.
Justice Bhattacharya also made it clear that no provocative remarks that could hurt anyone’s religious sentiments would be made at the meeting.
He directed the state administration to deploy adequate police forces to ensure no untoward incident takes place during the programme.
A list of the volunteers’ names, along with their phone numbers, will have to be submitted to the police by 8 p.m. on Thursday, Justice Bhattacharya ruled.
Since the Assembly election, which marked a landslide defeat for Trinamool Congress, Mamata Banerjee restricted her outdoor political activities to the state capital of Kolkata. Sreerampore will be her first outdoor meeting in the district after the elections.
(IANS)
