Calcutta, Feb. 2: At a time when Mamata Banerjee has declared that she will not surrender before the Barasat sessions court in connection with a 1994 case, her close associate and party MLA Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay today obtained a stay from the high court on an arrest order issued against him in the same case.

Justice S.P. Talukdar, in his interim order, directed police not to arrest Chattopadhyay until February 16 and fixed the hearing of the petition on that day.

Legal circles believe Mamata will soon move a petition before the high court to obtain a similar order to avoid arrest. According to the last order of the Barasat sessions court, the police will have to arrest the Trinamul Congress chief and eight other party leaders by February 27 this year.

On February 22, 1994, Youth Congress supporters led by Mamata had organised an agitation at Dak Bungalow More in Barasat. The police resorted to a lathicharge to control the demonstrators after they started throwing brickbats at the police. The police opened fire, in which one person was killed.

An FIR was lodged against Mamata and 190 Youth Congress activists and a criminal case was started against her and MLAs Saugata Roy and Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay.