Calcutta High Court upholds order, rules out parallel probe by CID in coal smuggling case

Kolkata: A division bench of Calcutta High Court on Tuesday upheld an earlier order of the single-judge bench of the same court ruling out the requirement of a parallel probe in the coal smuggling scam by the CID.

The division bench has also upheld the earlier order of the single-judge bench that if CID gets any clue in the coal smuggling scam it would pass on the same to the CBI, which is conducting a probe in the matter.

On September 27, Calcutta High Court's single-judge bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha observed that when the CBI was already probing the coal smuggling case, a parallel probe by the CID-West Bengal in the matter was unnecessary.

Justice Mantha passed this judgement on a petition filed by BJP leader from Asansol, Jitendra Tiwari challenging a summon from CID in the matter. In his petition, he raised the same point on justification of the parallel CID probe in the coal smuggling scam when CBI was already investigating the matter.

Justice Mantha also stayed CID from sending summons to Tiwari in this connection and observed that the petitioner cannot be summoned as witness in the matter by the state agency.

Tiwari is the former Trinamool Congress MLA from Pandaveswar assembly constituency in West Midnapore district from 2016 to 2021 and also the mayor of the Trinamool Congress Asansol Municipal Corporation. However, before the 2021 West Bengal assembly polls, he left the state's ruling party and joined the BJP.

The state government challenged the order by Justice Mantha at Calcutta High Court's division bench of Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Apurba Sinha Ray. However, the division bench too on Tuesday affirmed the earlier order of the single-judge bench on this count.

The division bench also agreed with the single-judge bench observation that there is no justification of a parallel probe by CID-West Bengal in the same case. The division bench also asked CBI to file an affidavit on its part after the full operations at Calcutta High Court resume after the festival holidays.

When contacted, Tiwari told IANS that the state government's unnecessary dragging a matter for the purpose of political vengeance was found to take a halt at the court. "Instead of spending so much in unnecessarily dragging such matters, the state government should spend that money behind the development of the state," he said.