Mother Of Dead BJP Youth Wing Leader Seeks CBI Probe: Calcutta High Court Issues Notice, Directs State To Submit CFSL Report

The Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed the State government to apprise the Court about the findings of the report of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), Kolkata on the next date of hearing pertaining to the death of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) West Bengal youth leader Arjun Chowrasia who was found hanging inside a building in North Kolkata's Ghosh Bagan area.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj was adjudicating upon a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition seeking judicial intervention into the incident of unnatural death on allegations of foul play.

On the last date of hearing, took on record the post-mortem report of the deceased BJP youth leader which stipulated that the cause of death is due to hanging and that the ligature marks are ante-mortem. The Court had earlier also directed the post-mortem examination to be conducted under video surveillance at the Command Hospital, Kolkata by a team of experts and in the presence of Chief Judicial Magistrate, South 24-Parganas.

On Thursday, advocate Priyanka Tibrewal appearing for the petitioner submitted that the viscera report is necessary to ascertain the nature of the crime and determine the case of death. Furthermore, Advocate General S.N Mookherjee appearing for the State apprised the Court that on  May 13, the viscera sample had been received by the investigating agencies from the Command Hospital, Kolkata which was subsequently handed over to CFSL, Kolkata for the conduct of an analysis. 

Accordingly, the Court directed the Advocate General to apprise the Court about the report of the CFSL, Kolkata pertaining to the viscera sample on the next date of hearing which is slated to take place on June 14. 

Furthermore, an intervening application filed by the mother of the deceased seeking inter-alia a CBI probe into the case was also mentioned before the Bench on Thursday. Thus, the Bench directed the State government to file a response to the intervening application if required before the next date of hearing. 

Case Title: Amrita Pandey v. The Union of India and others