In a major embarrassment for the Mamata Banerjee government, the Calcutta High Court on Tuesday directed the state government to pay Rs 50,000 each as compensation to Jadavpur University Professor Ambikesh Mahapatra and a retired engineer Subrata Sengupta, who were arrested in April, 2012 for sharing a ‘cartoon’ featuring the CM and former rail ministers Dinesh Trivedi and Mukul Roy. Upholding a petition filed by Mahapatra that sought compensation for his arrest, the court observed that his “human rights were indeed violated by public servants”. [related-post] Justice Dipankar Datta said the state should pay Rs 50,000 compensation to the petitioner within a month of the receipt of the order. The court also directed the state to pay an additional Rs 50,000 to petitioner as legal expenses. The judge has also recommended disciplinary proceedings against the two police officers who arrested Mahapatra. Mahapatra, while lauding the court’s order, said that he was not sure that it will be implemented. “This is a moral victory for me. The court has upheld the freedom of speech. But in several instances we have seen that the state did not implement the court’s order and moved the higher court, spending lakhs in the process. So I am not sure whether the order would be implemented,” he added. Mahapatra, who was arrested three years ago, is still an under trial and there have been a dozen hearing in this case. In April 2012, he was assaulted and later arrested by officers of Jadavpur Purba police station for forwarding an e-mail containing a cartoon featuring Banerjee, Trivedi and Roy and based on Satyajit Ray’s movie Sonar Kella. In August that year, then chairman of West Bengal Human Rights Commission (WBHRC) Justice (retd) A K Ganguly took a suo moto cognizance of the case and after inquiring into the matter, recommended the state to pay a compensation of Rs 50,000 each to Mahapatra and his neighbour Sengupta for their arrest and harassment. However, the government refused to pay the compensation after which Mahapatra filed a writ petition in the High Court seeking compliance of the WBHRC recommendations. Significantly, the High Court’s observations on Tuesday are similar to those made by the WBHRC. While contacted, Justice Ashok Ganguly, former chairman of WBHRC told The Indian Express, “This is a victory of human rights, victory of democracy and victory of common people.I have heard that the court has also imposed an additional fine for the harassment of professor Mahapatra. It is really praiseworthy.”
