PIL before Calcutta High Court alleges threat to CM Mamata Banerjee’s life; cites three air travel incidents

A public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed before the Calcutta High Court alleging that attempts have been made on the life of West Bengal Chief Minister (CM) Mamata Banerjee during her air travels on more than one occasion..The plea filed by Biplab Kumar Chowdhury alleged that a conspiracy has been ongoing for many years to assassinate Banerjee and destabilise the State.“The repeated attempts made on her life cannot be ignored or taken casually and requires an immediate investigation by a specialised agency constituted by the Court,” the plea said.When the matter was taken up on Monday by a bench of Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj, the Central and State governments sought time to take instructions. The Court allowed the same and adjourned the case for April 25. "The affidavit of service filed by the petitioner is taken on record. Counsel for the petitioner has supplied complete set of petition with annexures to learned Advocate General. Learned Advocate General as also counsel for the Union of India seek time to obtain instructions in the matter," the order said. .The plea pointed three specific instances to buttress the claims raised in the petition.One was on March 4, 2022, when she was travelling from Lucknow to Kolkata on a chartered flight. During the flight, another plane came head on, forcing the pilot of the CM's aircraft to take a nosedive. A big tragedy was averted but the CM was injured in the process, the plea said.Another incident happened two days prior to that on March 2, when the CM was travelling via four-wheeler to board a plane. Her convoy was on the runway when a helicopter came in front of her convoy and nearly crashed into her vehicle, the plea alleged. Timely intervention by the Air Traffic Control Authority saved her, the plea claimed.In 2016 too, an attempt was made on her life when she was travelling via Indigo flight from Patna to Kolkata, the plea stated. The petitioner had made a complaint regarding the same to the officer in charge of the airport police station, but no formal investigation was done by the respondent authorities, it was alleged. The petitioner has, therefore, sought appointment of an “independent” and “specialised” agency to investigate the incidents..Advocates Phiroze Edulji, Sayan Chattopadhya and Soumen Bandyopadhya appeared for the petitioner.Advocates Billwadal Bhattacharyya and Partha Sarathi Mondal represented the Central government.Advocate General SN Mookherjee represented the State government.