Trinamool's Abhishek Banerjees Appeal For Urgent Hearing Rejected

A division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Friday did not allow an urgent hearing of an appeal by Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee challenging a single bench order which said that there was no restraining order on CBI to act upon a notice to him.

The high court had on Thursday dismissed a petition filed by Mr Banerjee seeking a recall of a previous order of the same court which said that investigative agencies such as the CBI and the ED could interrogate him in the teacher recruitment scam.

Justice Amrita Sinha, while dismissing the petition, had also imposed a penalty of Rs 25 lakh on him and also a similar amount on Kuntal Ghosh, an accused in the scam.

Mr Banerjee moved a division bench challenging the order of Justice Sinha and prayed for an urgent hearing.

The division bench presided by Justice Subrata Talukdar told Abhishek Banerjee's lawyer that it would take up matters which appear on the list for Friday and since it already has a number of hearings and orders to be passed, unlisted matters would not be taken up.

The division bench gave liberty to Abhishek Banerjee's lawyer to mention the matter before the Chief Justice for its reassignment to another bench.

Friday was the last regular working day of the high court before the commencement of summer holidays.

The bench also granted him permission to move the vacation bench for hearing of the appeal.

Justice Sinha had said in her order that a notice by the CBI issued to Abhishek Banerjee was yet to be acted upon even though there is no order restraining the investigating authority to proceed with it.

She dismissed petitions by Mr Banerjee and Kuntal Ghosh, who had filed the complaint before the local police alleging that he was being pressured to name the TMC MP, and imposed costs of Rs 25 lakh each on them.

The Soumen Nandy versus State of West Bengal case, in which the order was passed, was transferred from the court of Justice Gangopadhyay to that of Justice Sinha by the high court's Acting Chief Justice on a direction by the Supreme Court.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)