Plea Seeking CBI Or SIT Probe Into Violence Against Women In Sandeshkhali West Bengal Mentioned Before Supreme Court For Urgent Hearing
A PIL seeking transfer of investigation into the alleged large-scale violence against women in Sandeshkhali in West Bengal to the CBI or a SIT was mentioned today morning before the Supreme Court. Responding to the mentioning of the case for urgent listing, Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said that the Court shouldn't be "pressurized".
The plea seeks seeks investigation into allegations of land-grabbing and systemic sexual exploitation of women in the Sandeshkhali village by local Trinamool Congress leaders. The plea also seeks transfer of the probe and subsequent trial outside the state of West Bengal.
In the plea filed by Petitioner in Person, AOR Alakh Alok Srivastava, while citing particular instances of violence, termed the situation "axiomatic" as there were serious allegations against the local leaders of the ruling party of the State, sexually assaulting various helpless women of the village – Sandeshkhali. The plea also states that there are even more serious allegations against the local police of the State being complicit with the said leaders of the ruling party.
The petition was mentioned before a bench comprising Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra.
The CJI said that had the Counsel mailed the petition a day before, he would have seen it. Pursuant to which, when the Counsel cited the urgency, CJI further exclaimed that he cannot be pressurized.
However, the CJI said that he will see it in the afternoon.
As per the plea, the “deeply disturbing” allegations of sexual assault of the women of Sandeshkhali by the leaders of the ruling party of the state of West Bengal, were evident from a perusal of the relevant portions of the High Court order dated February 13, 2024, which reads, “The petitioners are the residents of Sandeshkhali II Development Block. They are aggrieved with the highhanded and arbitrary action of the police and the civil administration depriving their fundamental rights like access to justice, right to livelihood, freedom of movement, etc. For quite some time now, three notorious criminals of the locality namely, Sk. Shajahan, Shiba Prasad Hazra and Uttam Sardar, all belonging to the ruling political dispensation, had been torturing the inhabitants of the area in various ways. They would forcibly grab the agricultural land belonging to the local residents, introduce salt water into such land and use the same to form illegal fisheries. They would, thereafter, force the local people to work at those fisheries and most of the times the latter would not be paid proper wages. The miscreants would take away women from the locality in the midst of night to their offices and sexually exploit them. No complaint was taken by the local police authorities. In fact, often the police would refer the complainant to the said Shiba Prasad Hazra.”
While citing excerpts from news, the petitioner has contended that the National Commission of Women has found in its enquiry that the police filed complaints against the relatives of women victims instead of filing their complaints and that the said victims are being threatened by local police, deterring them from coming out and reporting instances of sexual and physical harassment. Therefore, according to the petitioner, intervention of the Court is warranted in the present matter.
“The terror of the said Sheikh Shahjahan in the said area is further evident from the fact that on 05.01.2024, when a team of Enforcement Directorate (“ED”) officers went to raid Sheikh’s house in Sandeshkhali in connection with alleged irregularities in the PDS scheme then the goons of the said Sheikh Shahjahan attacked the said ED officers in which three ED officers were badly injured and left bleeding. Thereafter, very strangely, FIR was filed against the ED officials themselves by the state police and the same was only stayed by the Hon’ble Calcutta High Court on 11.01.2024 on a plea filed by the ED in this regard. Thus, the Petitioner herein has a reasonable apprehension that the free and fair investigation and trial of the instant case can not be done in the stage of West Bengal and hence, the same deserves to be transferred outside the state of West Bengal in the interest of justice”, the plea reads.
The plea seeks the following directions:
- to transfer the investigation of the alleged sexual assault of women of village Sandeshkhali, Basirhat, from West Bengal Police to the Central Bureau of Investigation or to a Special Investigation Team (SIT) situated outside the state of West Bengal, preferably at Delhi, under monitoring of the Supreme Court;
-to form a Committee of three retired Judges of the High Courts, in line with the committee formed in Manipur atrocity cases (Dinganglung Gangmei Vs. Mutum Churamani Meetei & Ors, 2023 INSC 698), in order to enquire into the nature of violence against women that occurred in the village;
-to the Respondents to grant compensation to the aforesaid victims of the sexual assault of the village;
-to the State of West Bengal to initiate stringent disciplinary action as well as penal action against the erring policemen.
