Calcutta High Court Quashes Defamation Case Filed By Public Prosecutor Against BJP Leader Suvendu Adhikari, Says File Before Appropriate Court

Observing that the “initial cognizance and the order of issuance of process is bad” in the matter, the Calcutta High Court has quashed a defamation case filed by a Public Prosecutor against BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari.

The bench of Justice Bibek Chaudhuri said,

“Without going into the merit of the case this Court fails to understand as to how the learned Chief Judge took cognizance of the offence in view of the decision of the Supreme Court in Ashwani Kumar Upadhyay’s case to the effect that a criminal case shall have to be instituted and tried before the competent Court of the learned Magistrate.”

The court was hearing the revision plea to quash the defamation case filed against Adhikari, the leader of the opposition and MLA. 

The court noted that the Public Prosecutor, City Sessions Court has lodged a complaint before the Chief Judge, City Sessions Court alleging commission of offence under Sections 499/500 of the Indian Penal Code.

It observed that the case is "exclusively triable by the learned special Magistrate or the learned Special Judge for trial of cases relating to MPs and MLAs in the State of West Bengal”.

Justice Chaudhari further said the High Court has “issued detailed guidelines in [Dr.Nirmal Maji v. Dr.Kunal Saha] CRR No. 1086/2022 regarding constitution of such (Special) Court in the State of West Bengal and by virtue of two notifications dated 6th March, 2018 and 27th January, 2021 the special Court to try the Magistrate triable and sessions triable cases are set up in the State of West Bengal”.

"Accordingly Complaint Case No. 2/2023 pending before the learned Chief Judge, City Sessions Court, Calcutta is quashed. The complainant is at liberty to take back the written complaint and file the same in the appropriate Court," the court added.

Case Title: Suvendu Adhikari v. State of W.B

Counsel for petitioner: Sr. Adv. Sekhar Kumar Basu and Advocates Sourav Chatterjee,Rajdeep Mazumdar,Mayukh Mukherjee,Soumya Nag,Aditya Tiwari,Namrata Chatterjee.

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