A CBI officer in Nandigram in November 2007

New Delhi, March 15: The Supreme Court today said the Nandigram case pending before it cannot be reduced to a showdown between the CPM and the Trinamul Congress.

Calcutta High Court had ordered a CBI probe into the death of 14 villagers in police firing on people protesting land acquisition in Nandigram.

The state government challenged the high court decision in the apex court in December 2007. Trinamul has, however, thrown its lot with the villagers, possibly with the Assembly elections in mind.

The political battle lines drawn in the state have often spilled over to court cases. The top court has in several instances asked both sides to keep politics out of their courtroom battles.

While hearing the state’s objections to handing over the probe into the Netai killings to the CBI, another bench had ticked off the Bengal government as well as the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights lawyer for trying to inject politics into the issue.

“Anyone who has committed a crime must be brought before the law” irrespective of the party involved, Justice G.S. Singhvi said.

The court, in a lighter vein, had asked the association’s lawyer Kalyan Bandhopadhyay, also a Trinamul MP, to calm down and not get “emotional”, adding later that sometimes “emotions” help argue the case better.

With elections round the corner, the court is wary of being used as a forum to ventilate political grievances as this may vitiate the facts of a case.

Today, when Bandhopadhyay tried to seek an adjournment in the Nandigram case on the ground that polls are to take place in Bengal between April and May, the bench chided the counsel for linking it with elections.

“This case has nothing to do with the elections. Or the fight between the CPM and Trinamul,” Justice R.V. Raveendran, sitting alongside A.K. Patnaik, said.

Bengal counsel K.K Venugopal intervened at this point to allege that the case had been got up by the Trinamul.

But Bandhopadhyay took exception to Venugopal’s reference to Trinamul and insisted that he was both a lawyer and an MP. “I have two sides to me,” he said. “I can be both,” he said.

The bench was hearing petitions on Nandigram, including one by the CBI seeking to have a stay vacated so that it could file cases against police officers involved in the firing.

The CBI, acting under the high court’s orders, has completed its probe but has not been able to move ahead because of the stay. It now wants the stay to go, as it would then be able to proceed and register FIRs against the police officers.

The state has been resisting it. It has instead been insisting that the top court ensure that the CBI also takes into account a “contemporeous” statutory inquiry which showed that the villagers were also armed and had opened fire at the cops before it completes its probe.

The state has also been insisting that it be given a copy of the CBI report. The agency has refused to show it to the state on the ground that there was no precedent.

“An investigation report can only be shown to the court,” CBI counsel Vivek Tankha said. “It is only given to others after a chargesheet is filed,” he added.

Caught between the two unyielding sides, the top court had during the last hearing sought a copy of the CBI reports submitted to the high court. Subsequently, the CBI submitted the reports. But the court adjourned the case till March 31 to peruse these reports before taking a call on vacating its stay.

The CBI said the reports only relate to seven instances of involvement of cops in police firing in Nandigram which the high court had termed as “unjustified”.