Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
Suman Sankar Chatterjee vs State Of West Bengal & Ors on 27 September, 2022
27.09.2022
PA(RB)
WPA(P) 493 of 2022
Suman Sankar Chatterjee
Vs.
State of West Bengal & Ors.
Mr. Joydeep Kar, ld. Sr. Adv.
Mr. Srijib Chakrobarty,
Mr. Rajdeep Majumdar,
Mr. Aditya Mondal, Advocates
... for the petitioner
Mr. S.N. Mookherjee, ld. Advocate General
Mr. T.M. Siddiqui, ld. AGP
Mr. Nilotpal Chatterjee,
Ms. Adreeta Pandey, Advocates
... for the State
Mr. Billwadal Bhattacharyya, Ld. DSGI
Mr. Ayanabha Raha, Advocate
... for the CBI
The plea raised in this public interest petition is
that between 2015 to 2017, more than 20,000 cattles
were seized by the Border Security Force (BSF) which
were in the process of being transported across the
border to the Bangladesh by paying illegal gratification to
the security force personnel and custom officials. It is
alleged that in that process, several local as well as State
politicians, mainly associated with the ruling party of the
State were involved. Further plea of the petitioner is that
the CBI has registered the FIR and that the Court of the
Learned Judge, Special (CBI) Court at Asansol in case
no. R/C 0102020A0019 had passed certain orders in the
course of investigation by the CBI. It is also disclosed
that on the complaint filed by the HQ 78 Battalion BSF
dated 23rd of November, 2019, the State Police Authority
had also registered an FIR in the year 2019 being FIR
No. 731 of 2019 dated 24th of November, 2019 under
Sections 406/120B/420/34 of the IPC and Section
11(1)(a), (h) and (k) of the Prevention of Cruelty of
Animals Act, 1960. In that FIR, final report in the form of
charge-sheet was filed on 13th of February, 2020. The
proceedings in respect of the case registered by the CBI
were challenged before this Court in CRR No. 810 of
2021 and by the judgment dated 28th of July, 2021, it
was found that no illegality was committed in the
ongoing investigation and no interference in the
investigation by the CBI is required, hence, the CRR was
dismissed.
It is alleged that in order to interfere in the
investigation by the CBI, the State authorities had made
a prayer for further investigation before the Additional
Chief Judicial Magistrate, which has been allowed by
order dated 12th of July, 2022.
Further allegation is that since powerful personnel
close to the ruling party in the State are involved in the
cattle smuggling case, therefore, the State is now trying
to interfere in the investigation by the CBI, taking
advantage of overlapping of the investigation by the State
agency. In this background, a prayer has been made in
the writ petition to transfer the further investigation in
the Raghunathgunj Police Station Case No. 731 of 2019
to the CBI.
Learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted
that investigation in the hands of the CBI is
comprehensive which includes all the three issues
namely cross-border cattle smuggling, evasion of custom
duty and involvement of Government officials in
precipitation of the crime. He submits that CBI has
already filed charge-sheet and three supplementary
charge-sheets and investigation is going on and that the
State Police had registered the FIR on the same
allegation and the overlapping investigation by the State
Police agency will hamper the investigation of the CBI,
therefore, at this stage, an interim prayer has been made
to stay the investigation by State agency.
Learned Advocate General has submitted that the
FIR has been registered by the State Police agency on
completely different issue relating to theft of the seized
cattle and that after filing the charge-sheet further
investigation has been permitted by the competent Court
on 13th of February, 2022.
Learned counsel for the CBI submits that the
issue relates to international cattle smuggling and that
after two years, the State agency had made a prayer for
further investigation in the case registered by it and
investigation by the State agency on overlapping issue
will hinder the investigation by the central agency.
We have heard the learned counsel for the parties
and on perusal of the record. We are of the opinion that
till the respective stand of the parties comes on record in
the form of affidavit, it would not be proper to permit the
State investigating agency to enter into the field in which
the central investigating agency is already investigating.
Hence, we direct that the State investigating agency on
the plea of investigating the offences relating to RC Case
No. 19 of 2020 will not enter into the subject matter and
connected field of investigation being conducted by the
CBI in the FIR being RC 0102020A0019 and will ensure
unhampered investigation by CBI.
The prayer made by learned Advocate General for
grant of three working weeks' time to file the affidavit-in-
opposition is allowed, thereafter, affidavit-in-reply be
filed within one week.
List on 14th of November, 2022.
(Prakash Shrivastava, C.J.)
(Rajarshi Bharadwaj, J.)
