Bengal court pulls up police after teacher’s arrest on conspiracy charge, grants bail

Addl CJM Arghya Acharya handed a copy of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita to the IO and asked the officer to explain why FIR invokes plotting mutiny in armed forces

KOLKATA: The Bidhannagar police in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district faced strong questions from the local court on Monday after arresting a jobless state government teacher on charges of planning to attack the police during an agitation that was scheduled to be held during the day but was called off, lawyers who attended the hearing said.

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During the court proceedings, additional chief judicial magistrate Arghya Acharya handed a copy of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) to the investigating officer (IO) and asked the officer to explain how it could invoke a provision in the first information report (FIR) relating to plotting mutiny in the armed forces, said lawyer Sanjukta Sen, who represented the accused, Rezaul Haque.

“The police could not explain the relevance of these sections. The judge also wanted to know the source of the purported telephonic conversation on the basis of which the arrest was made. The judge wanted to know the identity of the person with whom the accused purportedly had the conversation. The police only said they found the audio clip in a pendrive,” Sen said.

“The court granted bail after the police said it did not need the voice sample of the accused to match it with the audio clip,” Sen added.

Haque is among the 25,752 school teachers and non-teaching staff (Group-C and D) from the 2016 recruitment panel whose appointments were cancelled by the Supreme Court on April 3 in the bribe-for-job case.

On an appeal by the state, the top court said on April 17 that the non-tainted teachers may be allowed to continue in service until December 31 but they must go through a fresh selection test. Haque is among those teachers who are opposed to the test.

Anish Sarkar, deputy commissioner of police, Bidhannagar, played the audio clip before the media on Sunday. Haque was arrested hours later.

“We did not oppose the bail because he is scheduled to appear for the test on September 7,” Sarkar told the media on Monday evening.

Asked why charges of plotting mutiny in the armed forces were pressed against Haque, Sarkar said: “I cannot comment before seeing the court order.”