SC seeks Centre's response for imposing President rule in Bengal

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a plea seeking direction to the Centre to impose President's Rule in West Bengal in view of deteriorating law and order situation due to the post-poll violence which started on May 2, the day of assembly election results.

The plea also sought direction to the Centre to deploy armed/paramilitary forces in the aid of the administrative authorities to bring normalcy in the state and to save it from internal disturbances. Besides, the PIL has sought setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) for probing the causes and reasons of post-poll violence in West Bengal. A bench of Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari issued notice to the Centre, West Bengal and Election Commission of India on the plea, which also sought to central and state governments to award compensation to the victims and their family members after ascertaining the nature of loss sustained by them in post-poll violence in the state.

Advocate Hari Shankar Jain - appearing for petitioners Ranjana Agnihotri, a UP based practicing lawyer and social worker Jitender Singh - said that the plea is against post-poll violence in West Bengal. The bench said, "We are issuing notice to respondent number 1, (Union of India), respondent number-2 (West Bengal government) and Respondent number 3 (Election Commission of India)."

The bench, however, did not issue notice to respondent number 4 - Mamata Banerjee as the president of Trinamool Congress Party (TMC). The plea filed through advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain said that the PIL has been filed in extraordinary circumstances as thousands of residents of West Bengal are being terrorized, penalised and tortured by the workers of TMC for supporting the opposition party- Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) during the assembly polls.

"The petitioners are espousing the cause of thousands of citizens of West Bengal who are mostly Hindus and are being targeted by Muslims to take revenge for supporting BJP as they want to crush Hindus so that for years to come the power may remain with the party of their choice," the plea said.