Pratap Singha v. State Of West Bengal And ORS.

May 2, 2024 ADSL 1 Ct. No.14 SG WPA 12771 of 2024 Pratap Singha vs.

The State of West Bengal and others Mr. Rajdeep Majumder Mr. Moyukh Mukherjee Ms. Sagnika Banerjee Ms. Sarmistha Basak Mr. Souvik Palodhi ... for the petitioner Mr. Suman Sengupta Ms. Amrita Panja Moulick ... for the State Learned counsel for the petitioner submits as follows. The petitioner is the General Secretary of the opposition political party for the Uttar Malda Organisational District of the District Committee of 2024. He is also a campaigner for the party, especially for the Lok Sabha Elections to be held on May 7, 2024 at Malda district. Yesterday i.e., on 01.05.2024 at 3 pm a civic volunteer of the locality served a purported notice under Section 160 Cr.P.C. to the petitioner to appear before the office of Malda DD, CID, West Bengal today i.e., on 02.05.2024 at 11 am in connection with Harishchandrapur Police Station Case No.

1276/2023 dated 17.12.2023 under Sections 364/302/201/120B IPC. So, effectively it is not even a 24 hours' notice. The notice purporting to be one under Section 160 of the Code contains elements of Section 41A Cr.P.C. Practically, threats have been given for urgent compliance like that the petitioner shall render full cooperation in apprehension of the accomplice and shall not allow destruction of evidence. These are absolutely unwarranted.

The notice is also too short to comply with, especially considering the fact that the petitioner as his designation would imply, is campaigning for his political party for the ensuing Lok Sabha poll that is to be held on May 7, 2024. Reliance is placed on an unreported decision of this Court dated 09.10.2023 in WPA 24148 of 2023.

Learned counsel for the State denies the allegations and submits as follows. It appears that the investigating agency has considered the petitioner to be an witness in the case and asked him to appear before it in terms of a notice under Section 160 Cr.P.C. This has nothing to do with the schedule of the Lok Sabha Elections.

The portion of the impugned notice which requires the petitioner to give full cooperation in apprehension of the accomplice would necessarily imply that the notice was an accused and not a witness. This is in direct contradiction to the nomenclature of the notice.

In view of the above, the impugned notice is set aside. The State shall be at liberty to issue a proper notice, under Section 160 Cr.P.C. afresh to the petitioner giving days time and asking him to comply with the same.

Let the notice be issued after May 7, 2024.

With these observations, the writ petition is disposed of. Parties shall act on a server copy of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this Court. [ Jay Sengupta, J. ]