Plea on Gurung in Madan case

Bharati Tamang

Vivek Chhetri, TT, Darjeeling: Bharati Tamang has filed a revision application in Calcutta High Court seeking that a lower court order dropping Bimal Gurung's name from the CBI chargesheet in the murder of her husband Madan Tamang be set aside.

The application was admitted by the high court on Wednesday and it fixed the matter for hearing on December 11.

Arnab Mukherjee, the lawyer for Bharati, said over the phone from Calcutta: "We have filed an application challenging the August 17 order of the (Calcutta) city sessions court in which Bimal Gurung was discharged from the case. The high court has admitted the petition. The hearing will take place on December 11."

Of the 48 people named in the Madan Tamang murder case, the city sessions court had asked Gurung's name to be dropped from the CBI chargesheet. The court had then observed that charges against Gurung would not be framed in the case as the CBI had failed to provide enough evidence.

The order, which had come in the middle of the 104-day shutdown in the hills, had proved to be a major relief for Gurung.

The court had, however, directed that charges be framed against all the other 47 accused. The accused had filed discharge petitions before the lower court, which passed the order after hearing their advocates and that of the CBI for several days.

The 47 accused include senior Gorkha Janmukti Morcha leaders like Roshan Giri, Asha Gurung and Binay Tamang, who is currently the chairman of the board of administrators at the GTA. Opposition leaders like Harka Bahadur Chhetri of the Jana Andolan Party and Pradeep Pradhan of Trinamul, who were with the Morcha at the time of the murder, have also been named in the chargesheet.

Madan Tamang, former president of the Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League, was attacked with sharp weapons when he was overseeing preparations for a public meeting in Darjeeling on May 21, 2010.

The case was initially investigated by the CID. But after Nicole Tamang, a prime accused, escaped from its custody, the case was handed over to the CBI.