SC extends stay on notices issued by LS privileges panel to West Bengal officials till Jul 19

New Delhi, Jul 15 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Monday extended till July 19 the stay on notices issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat summoning the West Bengal chief secretary, DGP and others in a matter related to alleged breach of privilege of the House by them.

On April 15, the top court had granted two weeks to the Lok Sabha Secretariat and others to file their replies to the plea moved by top bureaucrats of West Bengal against their summoning by the privileges committee of the Lok Sabha.

They were summoned by the Committee of Privileges of the Lok Sabha over a complaint of “misconduct” filed against them by BJP MP Sukanta Majumdar when he was trying to visit the violence-hit Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas district of the state.

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud and justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra adjourned the hearing on the plea of the bureaucrats to July 19 after it was informed by a lawyer appearing for the Lok Sabha Secretariat that Solicitor General Tushar Mehta was unavailable as he was out of the country.

“We will list it on Friday. And, in the time, the ad-interim relief (of stay on notices) will continue,” the CJI said.

Meanwhile, senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for the five bureaucrats and officials of the West Bengal government, said that no breach of privileges can be alleged for the acts which were committed outside the House.

On February 19, the top court had for the first time stayed the notices issued by the privileges committee to the West Bengal chief secretary, director general of police (DGP) and others.

Majumdar was hospitalised after BJP workers clashed with police personnel over not being allowed to visit Sandeshkhali, where women were agitating over alleged atrocities committed against them by now-suspended TMC leader Shahjahan Sheikh and his aides.

Several women have accused Sheikh, who was arrested in February after being on the run for 55 days, and his supporters of land grabbing and sexually assaulting them under coercion.

Chief Secretary Bhagwati Prasad Gopalika, the then DGP Rajeev Kumar and others, including the district magistrate and superintendent of police of North 24 Parganas, were summoned to appear before the privileges committee of the Lok Sabha on February 19.

Singhvi had told the court that the privileges committee of the Lok Sabha had never acted so fast and moreover, there was “no breach by any iota of imagination”.

Besides the Lok Sabha Secretariat, the Committee of Privileges of the Lok Sabha, Majumdar, the Department of Personnel and Training and the Ministry of Home Affairs are the respondents in the petition filed by the state officials.