Kolkata, Dec 13 Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, on Saturday, claimed that the judicial committee announced by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to probe the ‘mismanagement’ that led to the chaos at Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata earlier in the day, presenting Argentinian soccer star Lionel Messi, was “structurally compromised”.
Adhikari also wrote a letter to the West Bengal Governor to order an independent judicial probe into the matter, scrapping the committee announced by the Chief Minister.
The committee announced by the CM will be headed by Justice (Retd) Ashim Kumar Ray. State chief secretary Manoj Pant and the additional secretary to the state home and hill affairs department, Nandini Chakraborty, will be the two other members of the probe panel.
“In an attempt to deflect public outrage, the Hon’ble Chief Minister has announced the constitution of an enquiry committee. With utmost respect, I submit that this committee is structurally compromised, legally infirm, and morally indefensible,” read the letter from the LoP to the Governor, a copy of which is available with IANS.
According to Adhikari, the committee announced by the Chief Minister is headed by a retired judge who simultaneously holds the office of Chairperson of a statutory authority functioning directly under the administrative control of the state government, and others are senior-most bureaucrats of the same executive hierarchy whose decisions, omissions, and complicity are already under scrutiny.
“This arrangement offends the most elementary principle of jurisprudence, nemo judex in causa sua, no one can be a judge in his own cause. An enquiry conducted by those institutionally beholden to the very government accused of wrongdoing is not an enquiry in the eyes of the law; it is a predetermined exercise in exoneration. Such committees, Your Excellency, do not uncover truth; they manufacture convenience. They do not fix responsibility; they distribute amnesia. They do not uphold constitutional morality; they weaponise procedure to shield power,” the letter added.
Therefore, LoP Adhikari requested the Governor to exercise his constitutional authority to order the constitution of a truly independent enquiry committee, headed by a sitting Judge of the Calcutta High Court and assisted by persons of unimpeachable integrity who have no institutional, administrative, or political affiliation with the state government.
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