Calcutta High Court orders BJP to Discontinue RathYatra

Calcutta High court holds BJP’s Rathyatra

The Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Friday ruled in favor of the state government, which had challenged the order of a single bench allowing the saffron party to hold its ‘Rath Yatra’ programme. The division bench comprising the Chief Justice Debasish Kargupta and Justice Shampa Sarkar ordered the BJP not to hold any rath yatra as of now.

The BJP had received the green signal from the same court yesterday, with a division bench overturning an earlier ruling by a single-judge bench that agreed with the government’s contention that the three “rath yatras” could trigger communal clashes in the state. The West Bengal government reacted by appealing against the verdict before a division bench comprising Chief Justice Debasish Kargupta and Justice Shampa Sarkar. It sought an immediate hearing because the case was of an “urgent nature”.

The matter came up for hearing before a larger bench headed by Chief Justice Kargupta today, and the case was sent back to the single-judge bench with instructions that it considers intelligence inputs on likely law-and-order issues before taking a decision.

“We were ready to abide by the conditions that have been laid down by the court. We had agreed to abide by similar conditions but the state government deliberately stalled our yatras by making baseless arguments. We thank the court and the people of the state for their support. Now, we will sit and decide the fresh dates for our rath yatra,” state BJP president Dilip Ghosh had said.