A single judge bench of the Calcutta High Court, on Friday, raised questions about the lapses and inadequacies in the security arrangements of West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu as he was injured during a ruckus in the Jadavpur University campus on March 1.
The single judge bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh observed that as a member of the state cabinet, which is a constitutional post, the Education Minister is bound by some protocol, which includes the presence of adequate security personnel escorting him during any public programme he is attending.
He observed that the March 1 ruckus was not a case where an adequate number of people attacked the Minister, breaking through the wall of security personnel around him.
According to him, it would have been a different matter had the security personnel been injured while protecting the Minister from the crowd, which did not happen in this case, and hence, there were severe lapses and inadequacies in the security arrangements for the Minister.
The state government counsel in the case and the four-time Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member Kalyan Banerjee argued that it is not always right to get security personnel escorting the Minister while he is attending a political programme. Thereafter, Justice Ghosh made the observations that as a Minister, who is a constitutional chair, Basu is bound by some protocol.
In a previous hearing on the same matter earlier this week, Justice Ghosh made some observations on the intelligence failure on the part of the Special Branch of the Kolkata Police that they did not have prior information about student agitation while the education Minister was there.
Drawing a reference to the recent students’ movement in Bangladesh, Justice Ghosh also observed that if such intelligence failures continue, the situation in the state might turn into a serious matter as it happened in the neighboring country.
The ruckus broke out within the university campus on Saturday when the Minister’s car was allegedly stopped after it entered the campus, and a scuffle followed. The students were demanding immediate elections for the university’s students’ council.
The agitating students alleged that while Basu decided to leave the campus in the face of the protests, his vehicle deliberately hit the two agitating students, following which they were severely injured and had to be hospitalized. Amid the protests, the Minister received minor injuries and fell sick. He was taken to the state-run S.S.K.M. Medical College & Hospital and was discharged later.