Bengal panchayat polls: Calcutta HC's division bench reserves order on CBI probe

Kolkata, June 23 Calcutta High Court's division bench of Justice Arjit Banerjee and Justice Apurba Sinha Roy on Friday reserve its order on a petition filed by the West Bengal government challenging the earlier decision of a single judge bench ordering a CBI probe in charges against a block development officer.

The officer is accused of tampering with the nomination documents of two candidates for the forthcoming panchayat elections.

The hearing in the matter was completed on Friday and after keeping the order on reserve, the division bench said that the same will be pronounced on June 26. Till the time the final order is pronounced the division bench directed the CBI not to initiate any move in the probe process.

Recently, the single judge bench of Justice Amrita Sinha gave this direction for the CBI probe following a petition filed by two candidates at Uluberia in Howrah district, namely Kashmira Bibi and Omja Bibi against the local block development officer accusing the latter of tempering with their nomination documents.

The two candidates have alleged in their petition that the nomination got cancelled at the scrutiny phase because of the alleged tampering of the nomination documents.

Justice Sinha also ordered CBI to complete the probe and submit a report on this count to her court by July 7, which is just a day ahead of the date of panchayat polls.

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