Debasree Roy

Calcutta, May 11: The Barasat court has issued an arrest warrant against actress Debasree Roy, the Trinamul candidate from Raidighi, and her brother for failing to comply with an order to return the six dogs they had “rescued” from their lawyer master.

The magistrate directed Barasat police station to execute the order and file a compliance report by June 6.

Some residents of Arifbari in Barasat allegedly sent an SOS to Debasree, who runs what her website calls “a non-profit organisation primarily dedicated to promote the cause of birds and animals suffering from lack of care and unwarranted torture”, to rescue the dogs that were in distress in the house of Rajnarayan Sharma.

On September 22, 2010, Debasree had lodged a complaint with Barasat police under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, and landed at Sharma’s home with brother Mrigen Roy and five cops.

The Roys “rescued” a female rotwheiler, a labrador retriever, a golden retriever, two boxers and a whippet from Sharma’s two-storey house and took them to their shelter in Tollygunge.

An aggrieved Sharma moved court to get back the dogs’ custody. “We told the court that Debasree’s organisation was not empowered to carry out such activities. We also submitted that contrary to her claims, my client took good care of the dogs,” said Sharma’s lawyer Dulal Sarkar.

He added that a magistrate’s permission was “a must to take away from someone’s house creatures that cannot not express themselves”.

Last October, the court had sought an explanation from Debasree on why she had not sought its permission to take away the animals and why she had not produced them before the magistrate to prove that they had been subjected to neglect at Sharma’s house.

The actress said the animals could not be taken to the court as they were ill. The court then asked an officer of Barasat police station to find out details about Debasree’s organisation and the condition of the dogs.

“Our probe revealed that the organisation had no legal sanction to conduct such a rescue operation,” said an officer of the police station.

On April 19, chief judicial magistrate Sumitra Roy instructed Debasree to return the dogs to their owner by May 6. But the order was not carried out, prompting Sharma to move the court again. On May 6, acting chief judicial magistrate S. Nimchoo issued the arrest warrant against Debasaree and her brother.

Attempts to get in touch with Debasree today failed.

Court raps code plea

The high court on Wednesday rejected the secondary education department’s claim that it had failed to carry out an order to pay the outstanding dearness allowance to two teachers because of the polls and the model code of conduct.

The code kicked in on March 1 while the first order to clear the dues was issued in July 2010, when the department owned the duo Rs 4lakh each.

“It is only an excuse, which the court cannot accept. The department will have to carry out the order and file a compliance report by July 16,” Justice Dipankar Dutta ruled.

Arati Ghosh and Anita Banerjee joined Gyan Bharati Vidya Mandir in Nimtala as assistant teacher in 1981. The education department, however, has not been paying them DA despite repeated pleas.

Ghosh and Banerjee moved the high court in June 2007. In July, Justice Dutta ordered the education department to clear the outstanding allowance in three months. But the order was not carried out, prompting the duo to move a contempt petition in Justice Dutta’s court in December.