The National Human Rights Council has recently submitted a brief report with annexures in a sealed manner to the Hon’ble Calcutta High Court regarding the violence caused after the Bengal elections 2021 and the people who have been displaced due to the same. The seven-member committee headed by Subir Sanyal asked for some more time from the Hon’ble court so that they could submit a more detailed report that would help the Hon’ble judges to visit the places themselves and understand the situation of the people better.
The Hon’ble bench comprising Hon’ble Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal, Hon’ble Justices Soumen Sen, Subrata Talukdar, IP Mukherjee, and Harish Tandon stated that the Hon’ble court had paused the reading of the report as it needed more time to examine the facts properly before passing any order. Therefore, the hearing had to be stalled till a further date on 2nd July 2021.
Mr. Sanyal reported to the Hon’ble court that the committee had been divide into five to six teams to carry out the investigation and almost 163 houses had already been visited. The members had found some facts and had noted down the same in their submissions. However, a copy of the reports could not be submitted because the committee wanted to submit the original report only to the Hon’ble court. therefore, the urge of Advocate General Kishor Dutta, to circulate the report had to be declined by the Hon’ble court.
The Hon’ble court also had to decline the request that the National Human Rights Commission should be asked to visit five nodal points of stagnation instead of visiting any random house for the sake of ease in the investigation and saving time. The Hon’ble court noted that the people were already under distress and the commission needed to be given autonomy to work in its way to comfort the people as well as serve the accurate report to the Hon’ble court.
Earlier on 18th June, the Hon’ble court had permitted the National Human Rights Commission to constitute a committee to investigate the grievances of the people. However, after an appeal for extension filed by Advocate Priyanka Tibrewal, the court stated that the state had failed to secure the confidence of the Hon’ble bench and that it found no reason to grant an extension to the committee.
The Hon’ble High Court instructed the commission to carry out the investigation and be prepared with further submissions on 2nd July 2021 while the Hon’ble court goes through the brief submitted.
