The Supreme Court on Monday requested the Calcutta High Court to consider at the earliest Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee's pending application seeking permission to travel abroad for specialised treatment of an eye condition.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana heard Banerjee's plea challenging the Calcutta High Court's refusal to urgently permit his foreign travel.

Appearing for Banerjee, Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan submitted that the application before the High Court was a limited one seeking modification of an interim protection order only to enable overseas travel for medical treatment.

"It is an innocuous application seeking modification of the High Court's protection order only to allow me to travel for a medical purpose. Your Lordships in most serious cases have granted me that liberty," Sankaranarayanan submitted.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the respondents, informed the Court that the application had already been included in the Calcutta High Court's consolidated monthly list and suggested that the High Court could be requested to take it up on a specific date.

Taking note of the submission, the Supreme Court refrained from examining the merits of the request and instead asked the High Court to decide the pending application expeditiously.

"The application for allowing to travel abroad for medical treatment is pending before the High Court. It appears that no date has been fixed so far. We therefore request the High Court to look into that application," the Bench ordered.

The restriction on Banerjee's travel flows from an earlier order passed in the pending criminal case, in which the High Court had granted him protection from coercive action on the strict condition that he would not leave the country without obtaining prior permission from the Court.

The High Court's condition was imposed as a condition for stay on his arrest in the criminal case relating to an alleged provocative speech made in connection with the recently concluded West Bengal Assembly elections. Rejecting the plea for immediate foreign travel, the High Court directed Banerjee to first undergo a medical examination by specialists at the state-run SSKM Hospital in Kolkata before any decision on overseas treatment could be considered.

Case : Abhishek Banerjee v State of West Bengal | Diary No.44012/2026