Kolkata: In two separate orders the Calcutta High Court granted Wednesday relief to BJP MP Jagannath Sarkar and the saffron party’s leader in murder cases.
In the first case anticipatory bail was granted to Sarkar in connection with the murder case of Trinamool Congress MLA Satyajit Biswas in Nadia district in 2019. The court had earlier granted interim protection from arrest to Sarkar, while directing him to cooperate with the investigation in the case.
A division bench comprising justices Joymalya Bagchi and Suvra Ghosh accepted the anticipatory bail plea of Sarkar on two sureties of Rs 50,000 each. He was also directed to appear before the investigating officer of the state CID once every month.
Biswas, TMC MLA from Krishnaganj was shot dead in the evening of February 9 inside a Saraswati Puja marquee near his house at Phoolbari village.
Sarkar on the other hand was elected an MP from Ranaghat Lok Sabha constituency in Nadia district in 2019 on a BJP ticket.
Meanwhile the High Court also granted anticipatory bail to Roy in connection with a case of murder of three CPI(M) activists in 2010 in West Bengal’s Birbhum district. At that time however, Roy was the second in command in the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
Granting anticipatory bail to Roy, a division bench comprising justices Joymalya Bagchi and Suvra Ghosh directed him not to enter Labhpur, Bolpur and Shantiniketan police station areas of the district till further orders.
The bench also asked Roy to surrender before the trial court within four weeks to secure regular bail, besides submitting two sureties of Rs 50,000 each.
Claiming that it was a politically motivated case, Roy’s lawyer Sandipan Dasgupta submitted that he was not named in the FIR lodged in the case. The BJP leader’s name also did not crop up in the chargesheet filed in 2014, Dasgupta said.
Altogether 25 persons, including saffron party leader Manirul Islam and his two brothers, were named in the FIR filed in the triple-murder case. The three names were, however, dropped from the chargesheet filed in 2014.
Manirul, who was a local Left leader in 2010, had joined the TMC and was elected an MLA of the party from Labhpur constituency in Birbhum district. He switched over to the BJP in 2019.
Agencies