Bengali enough? Senior Advocate Kalyan Bandhopadhyay Solicitor General Tushar Mehta exchange words during Narada hearing in Calcutta High Court

The hearing before the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday in the transfer petition relating to arrest of four senior All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders in the Narada case proved eventful yet again as Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), took objection to certain remarks made by TMC MP and Senior Advocate Kalyan Bandhopadhyay..The trigger for the banter was a remark by Bandhopadhyay after the Bench had risen for lunch at 1 pm.Before the lawyers left, Bandhopadhyay said that Mehta’s arguments reflected an anti-Bengali attitude.“Mr. Mehta has shown his anti-Bengali attitude again. (BJP) leaders also showed it. What happened in Gujarat when Amit Shah was arrested in 2012. Everything is bad in Bengal only,” Bandhopadhyay said..The remarks came in response to Mehta’s arguments that whenever TMC leaders are arrested in Bengal, the Chief Minister and other leaders indulge in intimidatory tactics to bully the system.“Chaliye Khana Khaaiye (lets eat food). It is important to maintain our sanity also. We have to argue again at 2 pm,” Mehta said..The CBI had, in fact, moved the High Court seeking transfer of the proceedings before the special CBI to the High Court. This was on the ground that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and TMC ministers laid a siege on CBI office at Nizam palace after the four leaders, Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Madan Mitra and Sovan Chatterjee were arrested by the CBI on May 17.The CBI also said that the State Law Minister along with TMC supporters also gathered at the Special CBI court which was hearing the bail plea of the four leaders though the hearing eventually took place over virtual platform. These actions by TMC ministers and supporters vitiated the proceedings before the special court, the CBI submitted seeking transfer of the matter to the High Court..Mehta during his submissions had said that such instances have been repeatedly happening in West Bengal and cited similar instance when CBI sought to arrest then Kolkata Police Commissioner, Rajeev Kumar.This was what prompted the remarks by Bandhopadhyay.When the Bench reassembled at 2.30 pm, Mehta responded to the comments made by Bandhopadhyay..“After Your Lordships rose, Mr. Bandhopadhyay made remarks that I am anti-Bengal. Bengal is the cultural capital of the country. I and all admire and respect Bengalis. It has given us Swami Vivekanandji, Rabindranath Tagore, thinkers. When I said such instances are happening in Bengal, I meant under a (political) dispensation. The submission is not against Bengal as a geography or Bengalis,” Mehta said.He, therefore, requested that lawyers refrain from making such remarks.Bandhopadhyay sought to respond to the same..However, Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal, who was heading the Bench, said that the Court cannot be used as a platform to trade political barbs.“You can do it elsewhere. Not on this platform,” Justice Bindal said.The hearing in the case will resume at 11.30 am tomorrow.On Monday too, the hearing in the case witnessed sharp exchange of words between Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and West Bengal Advocate General Kishore Dutta.Read a full account of Wednesday’s hearing here.