Top court notice to West Bengal government

The local police allegedly forced the customs officials to let the woman leave through the green channel, meant for flyers who have no dutiable goods to declare.

The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to West Bengal government on a petition filed by a member of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs accusing the local police of stopping customs officials from discharging their official duties.

An SC bench agreed to hear the matter despite West Bengal raising preliminary objections. Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the state government, said a PIL cannot be filed by a sitting board member. (Biplov Bhuyan/HT PHOTO)

Rajkumar Barthwal, who filed a PIL on behalf of the customs officials, narrated an incident of March 15 in which local police allegedly entered the restricted area at Kolkata airport and objected to the questioning of the wife of sitting Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee.

The local police allegedly forced the customs officials to let the woman leave through the green channel, meant for flyers who have no dutiable goods to declare. The customs department stopped her and her sister on their return from Bangkok and asked them to get their bags checked.

An SC bench agreed to hear the matter despite West Bengal raising preliminary objections. Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the state government, said a PIL cannot be filed by a sitting board member.

At this, the bench said: “We want to go deeper into this. We want to know what is going on in West Bengal.”