Kolkata, Sep 23 A division bench of the Calcutta High Court, on Friday, dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) demanding a complete ban on political agitation programmes in lines of BJP's march to state secretariat on September 13.
In the PIL, Ramaprasad Sarkar, an advocate by profession, claimed that BJP's march to Nabanna programme resulted in immense harassment for common people and huge damage to public property. Since, the normalcy was affected on September 13, such agitational programmes should be totally banned henceforth.
The petitioner also demanded that the BJP pay for the damage of the public property caused on that day because of their agitational programme.
However, the arguments placed by the petitioner on this count was not found acceptable by the division bench of the Calcutta High Court's Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj and finally they dismissed the petition.
To recall, parts of Kolkata and adjacent Howrah district turned into virtual battlefields on September 13 over the BJP's march to state secretariat programme. Several BJP supporters and police personnel got severely injured following clashes between them. A police vehicle was also torched on the streets of Kolkata.
Several top BJP leaders, including the party state president and Lok Sabha member Sukanta Majumdar and the leader of the opposition in West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari, got arrested on that day. However, all were released on the same evening following an order of the Calcutta High Court.
Later, the BJP had sent a five-member central fact-finding team to West Bengal on a two- day visit. The central team members interacted with the injured BJP supporters and rapped the state government for allegedly resisting a democratic movement.
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