Cannot be so high that CJ can’t have access: Supreme Court slams West Bengal chief secretary, DGP over Malda incident

In response, the secretary denied receiving any such communication, stating that no officer from Calcutta had contacted him.

“There was no call made by any officer from Calcutta to my phone. From 2 pm to 4:30 pm I was in flight and till evening no call came to me,” the chief secretary said.

Justice Joymalya Bagchi noted that it would have greatly assisted the Chief Justice and the High Court administration if the Secretary had shared his mobile number and other relevant particulars.

“The phone call in all probability came in the evening after you deboarded your flight from Delhi. It would have been extremely helpful for the CJ and HC administration if you had been kind enough to share your mobile number and other particular,” Justice Bagchi said.

Emphasising the need for accessibility, Justice Bagchi added that the secretary could not place himself in a position where even the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court or its administration could not reach him, and urged him to “lower himself a bit” to remain accessible to the court.

“You cannot be so high that the CJ of Calcutta or the high court administration cannot access. So lower yourself a bit so that CJ of Calcutta HC can access,” Justice Bagchi remarked.

The court directed the chief secretary to write an apology to the CJ of the Calcutta High Court.

“It is only because of sheer failure of your civil administration and the police administration that we gave this authority to judicial officers,” CJI said.

The Chief Justice of India noted in its order that, subject to the report that may be submitted by the Chief Justice of the High Court, no further action was proposed to be taken against the officers.

What happened in the last hearing? During the last hearing, the Supreme Court had pulled up the West Bengal administration over violence against judicial officers deputed in Malda district to decide cases flagged for logical discrepancies in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state and ordered a probe by the CBI or NIA into the incident. The court said the agency should “submit a preliminary inquiry report directly to this court”.

Following the Supreme Court’s directive, the Election Commission (EC) handed over the probe into the gherao of the seven judicial officers to the NIA. EC secretary Sujeet Kumar Misra in a letter to the NIA Director General referred to the apex court’s order and directed it to probe Wednesday’s incident.

‘Illustrated India’s Constitution, but his family can no longer vote’

The Supreme Court was on Monday informed by Senior Advocate Menaka Guruswamy that the Santiniketan-based family of renowned artist Nandalal Bose has been deleted during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.

Prime minister Smt. Indira Gandhi releasing a special stamp in honour of Nandalal Bose on the occasion of his birth centenary in New Delhi on December 5, 1983. Express archive photo

“His family has generationally lived in, his grandson (Suprabuddha Sen) has been… Nandalal Bose’s family has been deleted from the electoral roll. We would not have any illustrations in the Constitution if not for his grandfather,” Guruswamy informed a bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, besides Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipin M Pancholi in the Supreme Court.