Kolkata: Beliaghata Trinamul Congress MLA Paresh Pal and two Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) councillors of the ruling party, Swapan Samaddar and Papiya Ghosh, moved the Calcutta High Court on Tuesday for their anticipatory bail.
Their move came days after they were chargesheeted and were summoned for questioning by the CBI into the murder of BJP worker Abhijit Sarkar at Narkeldanga in the city during a post-poll violence in 2021.
Their lawyers mentioned before Justice Joy Sengupta of the HC that the CBI chargesheet and its summons against them was a political vendetta from which they needed a legal protection. The judge allowed them to file their petitions which are likely to come up for hearing on July 16.
Incidentally, TMC supremo and chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her MP nephew Abhishek Banerjee are scheduled to lead a protest rally from College Square to Dorina Crossing in the city on that day against the harassment of Bengali speaking migrant workers outside the state.
On June 30, the CBI submitted a chargesheet at the Sealdah Court against Mr Pal and Mr Samaddar, the ward no 56 councillor and also a Member Mayor-in-Council at the KMC and his niece Ms Ghosh, the ward no 30 councillor.
The CBI later issued summons directing the chargesheeted trio to appear at its office in CGO Complex of Salt Lake on July 18 to face questioning in the case.
