A single-judge bench of Calcutta High Court on Thursday asked state DGP Manoj Malaviya, Jhargram SP Arijit Sinha and additional SP Biswajit Ghosh to appear before the court on July 30 and clarify why contempt proceedings should not be drawn up against them for disobeying the court’s order to allow BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari to go to Netai on January 7.

Suvendu had been allegedly stopped by police from reaching Netai for a party event.

The event was held to commemorate the memory of nine people killed in police firing 11 years ago.

Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya issued the order on Thursday following a contempt petition moved by Suvendu accusing police of preventing him from reaching Netai on January 7 although he had the prior approval from Calcutta High Court.

"The Opposition party leader has every legal right to go to any place and the state should provide adequate protection to him. But in the present case, the police did not exercise constitutional rule. The accused police officers are directed to attend this court on July 30 and say why they should not face contempt proceedings,” Justice Bhattacharyya remarked while delivering Thursday’s order.

The BJP’s Nandigram MLA had also lodged a complaint with governor Jagdeep Dhankhar regarding the issue. “The governor had summoned the chief secretary of the state to know why police prevented me from entering Netai,” Suvendu mentioned in his contempt petition.

A state panel lawyer, however, said the presence of the leader of the Opposition in the area might have resulted in a law-and-order problem.

“That was why he was not allowed by the police to go to Netai,” the lawyer said, adding that the government was planning to file an appeal before the division bench to challenge the legality of Justice Bhattacharyya's order.