Kolkata: A public interest litigation (PIL) was filed in the Calcutta High Court on Tuesday objecting to the parallel probe by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of West Bengal Police into the multi-crore cattle smuggling scam.
Suman Shankar Chattopadhyay, the petitioner, has argued that when the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is already conducting a probe into the cattle smuggling scam, a parallel probe by the CID was redundant.
According to the petitioner’s counsel, Jaideep Kar, in a situation where the CBI has already made enough progress in the matter, a parallel probe by CID is beyond the latter’s authority.
Challenging the admissibility of the PIL, state advocate general S.N. Mukhopadhyay said that the police have launched its own investigation in the matter based on an FIR filed by the Border Security Force (BSF) in November 2019.
Mukhopadhyay questioned the justification of filing the PIL at such a later date and appealed that there should not be any interim stay in the CID’s own investigation in the matter.
CBI’s counsel, Billwadal Bhattacharya, argued that the central agency is probing the matter since national interest pertaining to the international borders is linked with the matter.
The petitioner’s counsel argued that the intention of the PIL is not seeking a stay in the entire investigation process. “We want the CBI to probe the matter since the internal borders are under the jurisdiction of the Union government,” he said.
After hearing both sides, the division bench of the Calcutta High Court asked the state government to submit its arguments in the matter in the form of an affidavit within the next three weeks.
CBI has arrested Trinamool Congress strongman Anubrata Mondal and his bodyguard Sehgal Hossain in connection with the cattle-smuggling scam. Both are in judicial custody now.
–IANS
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