DGHC casual workers out on a Darjeeling street demanding permanent jobs. Picture by Suman Tamang

Darjeeling, Feb. 9: The judge of the district and session’s court here has sought an explanation from the superintendent of the Darjeeling District Correctional Home on why an undertrial was not produced in court today.

Since the Gorkha Janmukti Vidyarthi Morcha’s call on Thursday to stop all government vehicles including those of police plying in the hills, undertrials cannot be brought to court because of lack of “security and vehicles”.

N. Boral, the district and session’s court judge, has issued a notice wanting to know why Sadil Subba, an undertrial booked under Section 302 of the IPC (murder), was not produced before him today. The court has asked the correctional home to submit the explanation by March 19, when Subba will be produced in court again.

In Darjeeling there are six courts — the district and session’s court, additional session’s court first court, second court and third court, chief judicial magistrate’s court and the judicial magistrate’s court. Although the exact number of undertrials to have been produced in the six courts since Thursday could not be ascertained, sources said at least seven to eight undertrials are produced daily. It is also learnt that most of the courts in Darjeeling are giving fresh dates to the undertrials.

A lawyer in Darjeeling said it is mandatory for an undertrial to be produced before a magistrate every 15 days. “If not produced, then detention at the correctional home can be considered illegal,” he said.

Although authorities at the correctional home could not be immediately contacted, Amal Kanti Ray, the subdivisional officer of Darjeeling who is also the subdivisional magistrate and the in-charge of the correctional home, admitted that “there have been problems”.

“Md Dilshad (a Pakistani national) could not be taken to Siliguri yesterday as no police security was provided and also there were no vehicles to take him down,” Ray said.

Dilshad had been accused of being an ISI agent. However, the district and session’s court had absolved him of all charges under the Official Secrets Act, sections 3 and 5 (spying and communicating classified documents) and the Explosive Substance Act on October 30, 2009.

But Dilshad has a case pending against him under the Arms Act (illegal possession of arms) at the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court in Siliguri. “I personally met Dilshad yesterday and convinced him about the problems we are facing. We have also written to the court seeking another date. We are hopeful that the problem will be solved in the next four to five days,” said Ray.

Darjeeling police chief D.P. Singh said he was unaware of undertrials not being produced on time as “it has not been brought to my notice”. He had earlier said: “If our vehicles are obstructed we will initiate cases for obstructing government officials from discharging normal duties.” However, no police vehicles have been plying since Thursday.

Police sources said with the state government refusing to go in for confrontation with the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, the law keepers have been trying to avoid “an unwanted situation”. “The crime rate is relatively low and there have been no such incidents in the last four days where the police have had to venture out for arrests. As of now we are only doing foot patrolling,” a source said.

The Vidyarthi Morcha today urged students from outside the hills not to “immediately come up”. “We do not want to inconvenience them if we have to start an agitation for permission (for the rally),” said Kismet Chhetri, the president of the outfit.

At the moment, the hill schools are shut for winter vacation and are scheduled to open in the third week of February.