In what must have come as some relief to the beleaguered West Bengal government, the Calcutta high court on Wednesday refused to accept a prayer for CBI inquiry into the Netai carnage.
Satisfied with its investigation, a division bench comprising Chief Justice J.N. Patal and Justice Asim K. Roy asked the CID to continue with their probe. The court gave this interim ruling after hearing a Public Interest Litigation filed by the Bar Association of the Calcutta high court. The court said that it would strictly monitor the CID investigation and also asked the state government to submit a report on its progress before the next hearing on February 4. The court made it clear that it was keeping the CBI probe option open.
Expressing apprehension that the CID inquiry may not be impartial, the petitioner had sought a CBI probe into Netai shootout in which seven people were killed on January 7. The toll rose to nine as two more people, who had suffered bullet wounds, later succumbed to injury in a city hospital.
Another petition was filed by Trinamul Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee seeking the immediate demolition of all illegal CPI(M) armed camps in the Jangalmahal. The court in its ruling directed the joint forces to find out if such armed camps existed and if they did, destroy them immediately. The division bench also directed the state government to pay an interim compensation of two lakh rupees to the kin of the dead, one lakh to the seriously injured and `50,000 to the injured within seven days. The bench said that so far it was satisfied with the CID investigation. It, however, warned that it would order a CBI probe if it was not satisfied with the state government’s report of the investigation.