PIL in Calcutta High Court alleges State fraudulently issuing stamp papers to garner numbers for TMC rebel faction

The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday sought a response from the West Bengal government to a public interest litigation (PIL) petition alleging that the State in cahoots with police and other authorities is fraudulently distributing stamp papers and forcefully obtaining signatures of Trinamool congress (TMC) members and others to support rebel members and leader of opposition Ritabrata Banerjee's faction [Surajit Mondal v. State of West Bengal and Ors.].

A division bench of Chief Justice Ravindra Vithalrao Ghuge and Justice Shabbar Rashidi said that stamp papers can be sold only by licensed vendors and such sale must be properly recorded.

"Stamp papers can only be sold by licensed stamp vendors. The sale of stamp papers must be there in the register. Show us whether you are doing this," the Court said.

The State said it will file a detailed response and sought time for the same.

The court agreed and posted the case for further consideration on December 11.

The petition before the Court was filed by one Surajit Mondal, an elected member of the Zilla Parishad in Hooghly.

The dispute arose from opposition leader Ritabrata Banerjee's claim that his rebel faction is the original TMC party which entitles him to the "Flower and Grass" symbol used by Mamata Bnerjee's faction.

Ritabrata Banerjee had broken away from Mamata Banerjee's TMC and earlier this year and has been claiming that he represents the real TMC since he has the support of more MLAs. He was later recognised as the leader of opposition by the speak of West Bengal assembly.

The dispute over which faction is the real TMC is pending before the Election Commission of India (ECI) and signatures on stamp papers is crucial to proving which faction has greater numbers.

This would thus affect the outcome of the dispute before ECI.

According to the petition, the upper echelons of the State government have instructed local authorities across West Bengal to unlawfully order the distribution of stamp papers, and existing TMC members and others have been coerced to give their signatures for the cause of the rebel faction.

Senior Advocate Kalyan Bandopadhyay, appearing for the petitioner, said that lakhs of stamp papers have been issued without making serialized entries of the issuance of the papers in the appropriate registers.

He said that the Court should call for a report from the State detailing the entries of stamp papers in the requisite sub-registries.

The State, on the other hand, challenged the maintainability of the PIL but sought time to seek instructions from the concerned departments.

The Court then asked State to file its response.

The issue pertaining to the maintainability of the petition remains to be argued at length.

"Since the issue of maintainability has been raised, the Respondents are at liberty to file their specific objection with regard to the maintainability of the PIL, along with their reply, with proper pagination in continuation with the petition," the Court said in its order.

Senior Advocate Kalyan Bandopadhyay and advocates Suman Sengupta, Anit Kumar Das, Ashish Dutta and Rahul Kumar Singh appeared for the petitioner

Government Pleader DN Ray with advocates Anindya Basu, Pradip Mukherjee, Indradeep Pal and Bikash Kumar Sriwastav represented the State.

[Read Order]