Kolkata:After Calcutta High Court issued a fresh directive on Wednesday to the West Bengal government to hand over the Sandeshkhali ED official attack case accused Shahjahan Sheikh to the CBI by 4.15 pm, West Bengal Police finally handed over to CBI officials the custody of the suspended TMC leader's custoday by West Bengal Police.
The CBI sleuths, however, were made to wait beyond the deadline at the CID headquarters at Bhawani Bhawan and were given the custody after around 6:45 PM. This was CBI's second attempt to get Sheikh's custody as on Tuesday, the central agency sleuths failed to do so after waiting for more than two hours.
Shortly after getting his custody, CBI officials took Shahjahan to ESI Hospital in Joka for medical check-up. From there, he will be taken to Nizam Palace. Earlier, the Calcutta High Court ordered that the 'mastermind' of Sandeshkhali incident should be handed over to the CBI by 4:15 pm. But that didn't happen. The state government moved the Supreme Court challenging the order of the High Court.
The CID lawyer argued that Shahjahan should not be handed over to CBI, as the case is still pending. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday that the state can apply to the Chief Justice if necessary. For now, the order of the High Court remains in force.
Earlier today, the high court directed the state government to "immediately implement" its Tuesday's judgement to transfer a case on the attack on Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials at Sandeshkhali to the CBI and hand over custody of the main accused Sheikh to the central agency.
The ED moved a contempt petition before a division bench presided by Justice Harish Tandon against the state government, claiming that it did not implement Tuesday's orders of a division bench presided by Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam.
The court noted that though the state pleaded that it has filed before the Supreme Court an SLP challenging Tuesday's judgement, there is no interim stay granted on the implementation of the orders till the time it was passing its order. Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, appearing for ED, submitted that pendency of an SLP is not a stay unless there is an express order to that effect.
He claimed that the state was trying to deny custody of Sheikh to the CBI. ED officials were attacked and injured by a mob when they went to search the premises of Sheikh at Sandeshkhali on January 5 in connection with a ration scam probe. Sheikh was arrested by the West Bengal police on February 29 in connection with the attack on ED officials, following which the state government handed over the case to the state CID.
It may be recalled that on January 5, on the day of conducting a search operation at Shahjahan's house under Nazat police station in North 24 Parganas' Sandeshkhali, the now suspended Trinamool leader was accused of assaulting the ED officials. Besides, the mobile phones of the central investigating officers and important government documents on the matter were also confiscated. Following it, Shahjahan was on the run for about 56 days. He was finally arrested from Minakha by the State Police's CID.
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