National Human Rights Commission’s report ‘perverse, absurd’, West Bengal govt tells Calcutta high court

KOLKATA: The state government has called the National Human Rights Commission’s report on post-poll violence in Bengal “perverse”, “absurd” and “politically motivated” and accused at least three members of the probe panel of having a “relationship with the BJP or the central government”.
The 95-page rejoinder to the NHRC-appointed committee’s 3,428-page report, filed in the Calcutta High Court, says the committee has stepped beyond the brief given by the court and — in its haste to conduct a “witch-hunt” — has questioned the judiciary in the state and even the Election Commission besides the state gov-ernment and the police.
“The committee has been deliberately constituted to spearhead a witch-hunt against the entire state machinery in Bengal,” the affidavit by state home secretary BP Gopalika says, adding that the NHRC chairperson “abused the process” and “appointed only those members interested in conducting a hatchet job against a democratically elected government” though he was expected “to form a non-partisan and fair committee”.
The affidavit also provides in a table the background of three committee members — Rajiv Jain, Atif Rasheed and Rajuben L Desai — to harp on the “relationship they share with the BJP or the central government”. It alleges that committee members “have converted this inquiry into a political theatre for their own personal political benefit”. “The committee members have treated this inquiry as a tool to exercise their political vendetta,” the affidavit states, adding that it has ignored “all principles of fair play and non-partisanship”.

The committee’s “concerted efforts to completely discredit a democratically elected state government are a death knell to democracy in this great nation”, the affidavit says in response to the NHRC committee’s “law of ruler instead of rule of law” barb against the state government. The state government, the affidavit adds, “is entitled to cross-examine the members of the committee and compel them to prove the veracity of the statements made in the report”.
The recommendations of a CBI probe and shifting the trial outside Bengal are examples of the panel’s clear “bias” and exceeding its mandate, the affidavit says. The panel, by not giving reasons why the trial should be shifted outside Bengal, “has opined that the judiciary in the state is complicit in the purported acts of violence”. The panel’s “questioning bail” to accused persons is meant to “raise allegations of bias against the judiciary as well”, the affidavit adds, explaining that bail is given “by a competent court and not in the hands of the police”. None of the bail orders had “recorded any adverse comments” against police, the affidavit says.
The state affidavit also questions the legal understanding and maths behind “general and sweeping allegations against the police” and says the committee’s stress on arrests is contrary to legal norms. The “Election Commission declared that the election was free and fair”, the affidavit states, adding that the panel’s allegations of a “pernicious politico-bureaucratic-criminal nexus” contradicts “the EC’s stand without any basis”.
The affidavit mentions 465 people recorded their statements in the presence of judicial magistrates and many more spoke to cops to question the NHRC committee’s assertion that post-poll violence victims were too scared to speak. The committee saw “fear in the eyes of the people” because its own eyes were “biased”.
The National Commission of Women mentioned about 425 victims of violence but an inquiry found that it had forwarded a list of 121 complaints, the state affidavit says; 17 of them were non-cognisable and 67 were false.