Handover Shahjahan Sheikh To CBI: Calcutta High Court Tells West Bengal Govt

The Calcutta High Court today told the State government to immediately hand over Shahjahan Sheikh, prime accused in the attacks which occurred on ED officials at Sandeshkhali, to the CBI.

Yesterday Live Law had reported on an order by a division bench presided over by Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam, which directed for the investigation into the attacks on ED officials to be handed over to the CBI since the State police appeared to be shielding the accused.

According to that order, the State was to hand over Shiekh's custody to the CBI by 4:30pm on Tuesday, March 5th.

However, on account of mentioning its SLP against the order before the Supreme Court yesterday, the State refused to hand over custody of Sheikh to the CBI.

Today, ASGs Ashoke Chakrabarti, SV Raju and DSG Dhiraj Trivedi approached a division bench presided over by Justice Harish Tandon to flag the State's allegedly contemptuous violation of yesterday's division bench order to hand the investigation and custody of Sheikh to the CBI.

It was argued that mere pendency of an SLP would not be grounds for non-compliance with an order, since there was no interim stay order granted on the operation of the judgement, and that the State was trying to deny custody of Sheikh to the CBI.

The bench noted that yesterday's order had expressly called for the handover of the case and the accused to the CBI forthwith and that there would not be an interim stay on the order due to the State filing its SLP before the Apex Court.

Accordingly, it directed the State to comply with the order and handover Shahjahan Sheikh to the CBI in terms of the earlier order by evening, today (6th March).