RG Kar tragedy: Calcutta HC clears the decks for protest programmes of BJP, Congress

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday granted permission to BJP and Congress for protest programmes condemning the rape and murder of a junior doctor of R. G. Kar Medical College & Hospital.

A single-judge bench of Justice Rajarshi Bhardwaj allowed the BJP to organise a sit-in demonstration at Esplanade in Kolkata from August 29 to September 5.

The BJP approached the Calcutta High Court for approval after police denied permission.

However, Justice Bhardwaj has said that the sit-in demonstration should not have more than 1,000 people at the venue.

Similarly, the same single-judge bench cleared the petition from veteran Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and his party colleague Asutosh Chattopadhyay to conduct a protest rally from College Square to Shyambazar on Thursday condemning the heinous crime.

Welcoming the decision, the BJP and Congress leadership said, "It has become a common practice that the police permission for any political programme by the opposition parties will be denied. The political parties move the court after which permission for the same is granted."

The leadership of both parties claimed that the Mamata government "lacks" minimum respect for the opposition parties.

Incidentally, the Congress protest rally on Thursday will be first-of-its-kind on the rape and murder issue.

Although Chowdhury had been quite vocal on the case since the beginning, the state unit of Congress had not been actively hitting the streets to date.

Earlier in the day, the Calcutta High Court rejected a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by an advocate of the same court, Sanjay Das, opposing the 12-hour general strike called by the BJP in West Bengal.

A division bench of Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya have also imposed a penalty of Rs 50,000 on the petitioner.

The BJP has given the 12-hour shutdown call to protest the "police action" on the participants of the 'Nabanna Abhijan' (March to Bengal Secretariat) rally.

Youths had called the Nabanna rally on Tuesday to protest the rape and murder of the junior doctor.