Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee addresses the meeting over a speaker (extreme right) on Thursday. (Pradip Sanyal)

Calcutta, Feb. 21: Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee took the dais — flanked by three sound boxes and two more perched on vertical stands among the audience — to recite a poem this evening, kicking off a Bengali poetry festival

In doing so, he flouted a state-wide ban on the use of microphones in open areas during major examinations.

In 1997, Justice Bhagabati Prasad Banerjee had passed the ban that comes into effect three days prior to the beginning of an examination and continues till its end. With Madhyamik 2008 going on now, the restriction is in force between February 12 and 27.

“It is a blatant violation of the high court directive and action should be taken in accordance with the law,” Banerjee told The Telegraph this evening.

The organisers — one of whom is the information and cultural affairs department — also do not seem to have devoted much attention to the fact that the venue, a few yards from SSKM hospital, falls in a silence zone. Neither did the police remind their boss — Bhattacharjee handles the home department, too — that the law was being broken.

Instead, the police guarded the makeshift and open-air stage — behind the Nandan auditorium — from where Bhattacharjee recited the Bengali translation of a poem by Jeremy Cronin of the South African Communist Party.

Others said that not too many Madhyamik students were in the vicinity — the excuse betraying persistent disregard for the law in a city where violations, often blessed by the government, have poisoned the air and made roads unsafe.

“If ministers or anybody in the administration attend such programmes, they are motivating and inciting the violation,” added Banerjee.

This year, along with a notification, the state noise monitoring committee — an arm of the pollution control board (PCB) — had sent a communication to the director-general of police and the city police commissioner, reminding them of the ban.

But the police do not consider it a violation. “The event, so far as I know, was organised within an enclosed space. Besides, you don’t need permission for a programme inside the Nandan complex,” said Vineet Goyel, DC (headquarters).

Banerjee, however, said: “Microphones can be used inside a hall or the area has to be enclosed in such a manner that noise cannot reach beyond the area.”

The festival is not an enclosed event and nothing, not even muffling of the speakers, was in evidence to suggest noise was being contained.

Microphone use in violation of rules can invite contempt of court, a charge that anyone can bring. The PCB and the police, too, can take action. If found guilty, the organisers can be jailed for up to five years and fined Rs 1 lakh.

“The invitees may not be aware of the violation. But why didn’t the cops act?” asked environment activist Subhas Dutta.