Two judicial officers, involved in disposing of under-adjudication cases in Cooch Behar, were allegedly “threatened” by district Trinamool Congress president Abhijit De Bhowmik, raising questions about whether this would hurt the adjudication process in the state as part of the SIR process.
Sources said that Bhowmik shot off letters to two judicial officers carrying out the adjudication exercise in the district, saying the officers were deleting names in high numbers. Bhowmick wrote the letters on his party letterhead.
“The language of the letters was perceived as threatening the judicial officers. The judicial officers handed over the letters to the district judge with a request to look into the matter. The judiciary considered it to be unprecedented,” said a source.
The source also said the issue had come up during a meeting in Calcutta High Court on Friday evening, where top government officials were present.
“The letters were handed over to the DGP, Siddh Nath Gupta, and he was asked to take necessary actions,” said the source.
Asked if he had sent such letters to the judicial officers, Bhowmick said: “I sincerely apologise for any inaccuracies or errors in wording the letters.”
Bhowmik is a Trinamool candidate from the Cooch Behar Dakshin Assembly seat.
Senior government officials said they believed that such activities by Trinamool leaders might trigger a law-and-order problem in Bengal.
“The political situation is really charged up in Bengal ahead of the polls. If such letters are sent to judicial officers, it could make things more critical,” said a bureaucrat.
Such activities, the senior officials said, might not send a positive signal to the Supreme Court, which had already made it clear that no complaint against the judicial officers would be accepted.
“As it is, the judicial officers are running against time to dispose of 60.06 lakh voters under adjudication. They have now picked up the momentum and are disposing of more than 1.5 lakh cases every day. Now, if they are threatened, the progress of the exercise might get hurt,” said a bureaucrat.
A senior bureaucrat told The Telegraph that the authorities should take up the case seriously and initiate proper action, as such incidents should not occur again.
“The way the judicial officers have been threatened, it could make things critical ahead of the polls by two ways. First, it could hurt the process if more judicial officers are threatened. Second, it could instigate voters whose names would be deleted from the rolls,” said a bureaucrat.
Senior officers of the state police, including DGP Gupta, could not be reached for comment on the letter. Multiple calls to them went unanswered.