The Supreme Court today adjourned the hearing in a petition seeking a probe into the post-poll violence in West Bengal. On July 1st, the bench of Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari had issued notices to the Central Govt, West Bengal govt and the Election Commission of India seeking their response on a PIL filed by UP based lawyer Ranjana Agnihotri and social worker Jitender Singh.
In the hearing today, the third respondent Election Commission was represented by a counsel, but there was no representation from the union govt and the West Bengal govt. This prompted the court to list the matter after two weeks. The bench also asked the petitioner to serve the notices again to the central and state govts.
Advocate Amit Sharma, who was representing the ECI, said that while notice has been served to all three parties, none of them have filed any counters.
The PIL was filed seeking the direction to the central government to deploy armed paramilitary forces in West Bengal to stop the post-poll violence by TMC workers against opposition workers, mainly BJP workers and their families. The petitioners also sought the setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) for probing the causes and reasons of post-poll violence in West Bengal.
The petition filed through Advocate Hari Shankar Jain had said that the PIL has been filed in extraordinary circumstances as thousands of residents of West Bengal are being terrorized, penalised and tortured by the workers of TMC for supporting BJP during the assembly polls. It said that thousands of mostly Hindu citizens of West Bengal are being targeted by Muslims to take revenge for supporting BJP, as they want to crush Hindus so that their chosen party remains in power for years to come.
The PIL also narrated how TMC contested the elections on communal basis, and how the violence started in the state just after the declaration of the election results. The PIL had also accused the Election Commission of failure to stop communal appeals made by the TMC. The petitioners further added that no action was taken by the state administration and police against the violence, which has already been established by the report by the NHRC committee.
Responding the petition, the apex court on July 1 had issued notices to three parties, central govt, state govt and ECI, but had refused to issue notice to CM and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee.