Bengal asks Supreme Court to revoke bail for Cong’s Nandigram candidate

The West Bengal government on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court seeking an immediate stay on the Calcutta high court order granting interim bail to Congress’s Nandigram bypoll candidate Milan Pradhan, arguing that a murder accused with six non-bailable warrants (NBWs) against him should not have been given such relief.

Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the state government, mentioned the matter before Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, pressing for an expedited hearing of the state’s appeal against the high court’s September 29 order.

“He is a murder accused and has been released only for elections. The high court failed to consider that there were six NBWs against this person,” Mehta told the CJI.

The top court agreed to list the matter for hearing on October 5, a day after campaigning for the bypoll ends. Nandigram will vote on October 6 and the counting is scheduled for October 9.

On September 29, a single-judge bench of justice Tirthankar Ghosh granted Pradhan interim bail for three weeks in six criminal cases dating back to the 2007 Nandigram anti-land acquisition agitation that included four murder cases, enabling him to campaign for the October 6 assembly bypoll. The court directed him to surrender before the Haldia trial court on October 21.

Pradhan was arrested on September 18, hours after the Trinamool Congress candidate withdrew and party chief Mamata Banerjee announced support for him. He was in judicial remand in connection with four cases registered at Nandigram police station and two more in neighbouring Khejuri, on charges including murder, attempt to murder and violations of the Arms Act.

The high court imposed strict conditions on the interim relief, including that Pradhan must deposit a bail bond of ₹20,000 in each of the six cases and that he must also provide his mobile number to the investigating officer, who is authorised to call him twice a day to ascertain his whereabouts.

Before the September 29 order, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court on September 25 had set aside a single-bench direction that had granted Pradhan protection from coercive action in a 2007 case, observing that criminal law did not provide for such interim protection for an accused already in judicial custody.

Pradhan’s counsel, Milan Mukherjee, had argued that the candidate was arrested after filing his nomination on September 15 and sought interim bail so he could campaign and properly participate in the election. The trial court at Kanthi had remanded him to judicial custody in one of the cases till October 7, which would have effectively ended his prospects of campaigning.

During an earlier hearing, West Bengal informed the high court that 18 people were accused in the cases and six of them were already out on bail. It had also submitted that five of the cases against Pradhan were withdrawn by the previous government and he was not wanted in the sixth.