A single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court has extended the interim protection for Abhishek Banerjee, General Secretary of Trinamool Congress and Lok Sabha member, from coercive police actions, including arrest. This extension comes in light of an ongoing Criminal Investigation Department (CID) enquiry regarding a mismatch in the signatures of some Trinamool Congress legislators on a document related to appointments in the West Bengal Assembly.
Abhishek Banerjee, who is the nephew of former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, had earlier approached the High Court seeking to scrap the FIR filed against him by the CID in the legislators’ signature mismatch case. The interim protection, which expired recently, has now been prolonged for another month by Justice Kaushik Chanda, the single-judge bench.
The CID inquiry revolves around discrepancies in the signatures of several Trinamool legislators on a resolution concerning appointments to Opposition bench slots in the West Bengal Assembly. Abhishek Banerjee has already been questioned twice by CID officials in connection with this matter.
