Calcutta, May 2: The division bench of Chief Justice S.S. Nijjar and Justice P.C. Ghosh today opened the sealed cover of the CBI report on the March 14 police firing, 39 days after it was submitted.

“The report is inconclusive. The investigating agency wants more time…. So we are asking the government to apprise us of the status of Nandi-gram by tomorrow,” the court said after going through it.

Only a paragraph of the 15-page report was made public. Para No. 21 says: “It is most respectfully submitted that the CBI team has confined its in- quiry to the mandate given by the court,” and adds the CBI needs time for a “thorough and detailed investigation”.

After reading out the paragraph, the chief justice said: “The remaining portion of the report will be kept in sealed cover till further orders.”

Nijjar added that he had no idea about the incidents in Nandigram after March 24 as he was on leave.

Appearing for one of the seven petitioners, advocate Kalyan Banerjee pleaded with the court for a copy of the report. The lawyers for the other petitioners, too, made the request. But it was turned down.

A day after the firing, the court had asked the CBI to inquire into the incident and inform it within a week the amount of force deployed in Nandigram on March 14 and whether it was justified.

On March 22, the CBI submitted its report in a sealed envelope.

When the case came up for hearing four days later, the court decided to break the seal only after the government and the seven petitioners who sought its intervention had filed their affidavits.

The case could not be heard even after the affidavits were submitted as the chief justice had gone on leave.

Responding to the petitioners’ argument that the government had “completely failed” to restore peace in Nandi- gram, advocate-general Balai Ray told the court “all possible steps” had been taken to “ma-intain normality” in the area.