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Chit fund: HC adjourns hearing on PILs seeking CBI probe
Tribune News Service & PTI

Kolkata, May 3
The Calcutta High Court today adjourned the hearing on PILs seeking CBI investigation into the multi-crore chit fund scam till Wednesday. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Joymalyo Bagchi adjourned the hearing after considering that four petitions had been filed seeking CBI probe and that the state government had filed its affidavit in connection with the first petition alone.

The bench directed that the state may file a supplementary affidavit on points raised in the other three applications.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has rejected the demand made by the CPM, the Congress and other opposition parties for a CBI inquiry. A section in the TMC, including party MPs Somen Mitra and Kabir Suman, has, however, supported the holding of a CBI probe.

The Chief Minister says she has no faith in the neutrality of the CBI especially after the Supreme Court’s observation on the role of the agency in the coalgate investigation. She has expressed confidence in the judicial probe and an SIT inquiry ordered by her.

Taking up a bunch of PIL petitions filed separately by lawyers Subrata Mukherjee, Basabi Roychowdhury, Bikar Ranjan Bhattacharyya and others, a division bench headed by Chief Justice Arun Kumar Mitra expressed surprise that the copies of the government affidavit filed in the court were not sent to other parties concerned.

Justice Jayamallah Bagchi asked the government’s counsel whether it was done purposely or by mistake.

The government counsel argued that since no such directives were issued by the court, the copies of the affidavit were not circulated among other parties. The counsels for the CBI, SEBI and the RBI were also present in court.

The court directed the government counsel to send the copies of their affidavit to the parties concerned within next two-three days.

The counsel for the CBI told the court that they were ready for the probe if such an order was given by the court.