Supreme Court Transfers Malda Judicial Officer Attack Cases to NIA, Criticizes West Bengal Bureaucracy

The Supreme Court on Monday, April 6, exercised its plenary power to transfer cases related to gherao and attack on seven judicial officers engaged in Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Malda district to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi said that the credibility of West Bengal bureaucracy is being lowered and politics is being brought into the secretariat and government offices. The bench ordered that 26 people arrested by the state police in connection with the Malda incident be interrogated by the NIA even if they are in judicial custody. The top court pulled up West Bengal Chief Secretary Dushyant Nariala for not picking up the calls of the Calcutta High Court Chief Justice on the day of the incident on April 1, when a gherao of judicial officers took place. The bench asked the chief secretary to apologise to the Calcutta High Court Chief Justice for not taking the calls and said it represents the failure of the district administration. The top court said the Malda incident, in which judicial officers engaged in SIR work were gheraoed for hours, was actually pre-planned and motivated. Seven hundred judicial officers from West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand were deployed in the ongoing SIR process to deal with over 60 lakh objections of those who are excluded from the voter lists during the SIR process.