Husband of sitting judge receives CID summons over complaint of widow and her daughter

Advocate accused of trying to influence and thwart probe by exerting pressure on investigators to back off

Sougata Mukhopadhyay, TT, Calcutta, 15.12.23 : Following a Supreme Court directive to “continue investigation without succumbing to any pressure”, the Bengal Crime Investigation Department (CID) has issued a repeat summons to Protap Chandra Dey, lawyer and husband of sitting Calcutta High Court judge Amrita Sinha, for questioning in connection with a complaint of a 64-year old widow and her daughter who alleged misuse of position by the judge and her husband to interfere in a criminal probe.

Dey, sources at CID confirmed, has been asked to appear at 11 AM on Saturday for a second round of questioning in the case in which he has already been questioned once.

The Bench of Justice Sinha is currently hearing sensitive matters on the Enforcement Directorate’s probe in the Bengal recruitment scam and has ordered the agency to unearth the sources of accumulated wealth of Trinamul Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, his immediate relatives as well as that of Leaps and Bounds, the company of which the leader is the CEO, in connection with the scam.

Coincidentally, Friday also marked the day when the Supreme Court refused to entertain and dismissed a petition by Banerjee who filed a plea to transfer the ED case from Sinha’s Bench to elsewhere and also prayed for a gag order on the media which continues to report the observations being made by the judge during the course of hearing on grounds that they accounted for the leader’s defamation.

What’s also interesting, and perhaps also coincidental, is that the dismissal of Banerjee’s plea in the Apex court was ordered by the Bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti, the same Bench which had directed the Bengal CID earlier this month to carry on with its investigation and without succumbing to any pressure and also ordered the state government to submit a status report of the probe in a sealed cover on the next date of hearing in December.

As for the case the CID is investigating, the petitioner moved the Apex court claiming that the part of a property was passed down to the widow after her father’s death through her elder brother and other wings of the family were attempting to dislodge her from her property by enforcing coercive means. The widow filed two criminal cases against her relatives alleging that her relatives engaged Dey as advocate who, in turn, exerted pressure on the investigators to back off in his effort to thwart the probe.

As per the petitioners, Advocate Dey has been ‘instrumental’ in dictating the mode and manner in which the investigation, if at all, was to progress, while also exerting influence on account of his spousal status.

The cases involve allegations of criminal conspiracy, causing hurt, cheating, forgery besides allegations of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, outraging modesty of a woman, house trespass and Section 25 of the Senior Citizens Act of 2007 which ensures cognizance of offences committed against senior citizens under CrPC.

In a sworn affidavit the petitioner alleged that Justice Sinha too had reprimanded the investigating officer after summoning him to her official court chamber for probing a civil case under criminal sections. The petitioner alleged that investigations were stonewalled on account of the interferences of the judge and her lawyer husband.

The state government had, however, submitted that a report was earlier sent to the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court regarding the status of the probe and the allegations made. The government has been conducting the investigation fairly and proceeding with caution considering the allegations made by the petitioners, the state’s counsel had stated.