“Please protect the Constitution, democracy, judiciary, history and geography of the country from disaster,” West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee urged Chief Justice of India Surya Kant at an event in Jalpaiguri on Saturday.
She did not elaborate how all these were in need of protection, though she has been fighting political battles with the BJP-led Union government on issues of state’s rights and federal overreach, including alleged misuse of central probe agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The ED issue is currently in the Supreme Court too, where Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) government has faced the bench’s ire.
Speaking at the inauguration of a building of the Jalpaiguri Circuit Bench of the Calcutta High Court, she also also called upon Justice Kant to protect people against being wrongly targeted by “agencies”.
“You (the CJI) are the guardian of our Constitution, we are under your legal guardianship. Please protect the people,” Banerjee said, as per a report by news agency PTI.
Justice Kant was present but the PTI report did not say if he reacted to what she said.
Banerjee also said, “These days, there is a trend of media trials before disposal of cases; this must stop, too.”
Mamata Banerjee’s trouble with ‘agencies’
The ED earlier this week told the Supreme Court that CM Mamata Banerjee has a “shocking pattern” of barging into premises during proceedings by statutory authorities. This was during the hearing of a petition by the ED, over alleged interference by the TMC government in its raids in Kolkata on I-PAC, the firm that does political consultancy for Mamata Banerjee’s party.
The court stayed the FIRs registered by the Bengal police against ED officers, observing that the matter raised serious and far-reaching questions. The SC bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Vipul Pancholi also condemned what it described as “commotion” in Calcutta High Court during a hearing in the same matter.
The ED raids were reportedly over a corruption case in Jharkhand, but the TMC has alleged the agency officials wanted to “steal” its election lists and strategy documents ahead of the assembly election, “at the behest of PM Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah”.
The CM reached the I-PAC office during the ED action last week, and took away documents, while state police surrounded the building.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Bengal government, said Mamata Banerjee did not cause any obstruction and questioned the timing of the ED raids, which came hardly three months before the state goes to polls in a bitter contest between the BJP and TMC.