A plea has been lodged in the Supreme Court seeking an independent probe to study the authenticity of the video of a sting operation which showed a person claiming that the false allegations of rape were raised by women in Sandeshkhali at the instance of BJP MLA Suvendhu Adhikari to cast Trinamool Congress leaders in bad light.
The plea has been lodged by a woman belonging to the Scheduled Caste community. The plea sought to intervene in the Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by State of West Bengal against the Calcutta High Court’s order for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into allegations of rape and land-grabbing in Sandeshkhali.
The petition also refers to certain reports regarding women being forced to sign blank papers to file false rape complaints. The petitioner urged the top court to constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to conduct a court-monitored investigation to ascertain the truth of the matter.
The matter was mentioned by Senior Advocate Dr Maneka Guruswamy today before a bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice Sandeep Mehta for urgent listing. The bench stated that the request will be considered.
Mentioning that the applicant has no political affiliation and was only interested to ascertain the truth of the matter, she stated that the contents of the sting video are alarming.
The plea underlined that as a citizen of West Bengal, the applicant apprehends that amidst all the political chaos between the opposition and the ruling dispensation at the State, Sandeshkhali district has been made a political tool to subserve the propaganda of BJP while putting the state in a bad light, or vice-versa. The plea added that the situation on ground is grim, and therefore an independent analysis of the video is required immediately to assuage the concerns of many like the applicant herein.
The Application for Intervention and Direction has been lodged by Udayaditya Banerjee, Advocate on Record.