Send plea on ‘Sanatani’ meet to CFSL to verify signatures: HC

Kolkata: Calcutta High Court on Friday directed that a writ petition and a vakalatnama seeking the court's permission to hold a Sanatani Dharma Sammelan at Contai on April 30 — the day the Bengal CM is scheduled to inaugurate the Jagannath temple at Digha — be sent to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) in New Delhi, to ascertain whether the signatures, purportedly of Rameswar Bera, were genuine.
The direction came after Bera, through his counsel Nilendu Bhattacharya, submitted to the court on Tuesday that he had not filed such a petition.
"The submission has changed the very foundation of the petition," Justice Ghosh observed. He told the HC registrar general to communicate the order to CFSL authorities within three working days.
Justice Ghosh allowed CFSL authorities to take the help of the Chief Judicial Magistrate's court in Tamluk. The HC kept on record the original petition moved by senior counsel Billwadal Bhattacharya.
Billwadal Bhattacharya also filed a fresh application to the court on behalf of landowners Shankar Bera, Dipak Bera and others to hold the sammelan at the same venue and on the same date. He argued that this was private land, and so the police had no jurisdiction to regulate a religious programme.
He cited Section 30 of the Police Act, 1861, which allows cops to regulate events, rallies or processions on public roads and thoroughfares. "Do you mean to say that police will not interfere in a murder on the grounds that it was committed on private land?" Justice Ghosh observed.
Advocate general Kishore Datta held: "The second application reveals that the landowner had no plans to organise the dharma sammelan. He felt the need only after the chaos in the courtroom over Rameswar's petition."
Citing Supreme Court judgments, the advocate general pleaded that the dharma sammelan was being organised for the first time and at a place with no religious significance. He said these were the two grounds on which HC had refused to grant permission to the reading of Hanuman Chalisa on Red Road earlier this month. Datta submitted that the applications didn't put forth why a dharma sammelan was sought to be held at a place adjacent to the national highway leading to Digha.
Datta said the state had allowed a gathering at Nachinda Sitala temple, en route to Digha, because that puja had been held for many years. Justice Ghosh preferred to wait for the police response to the application. "If there is no response, the court will presume that the police either allowed or turned down the application," he said, before scheduling the next hearing for Monday.