The legal battle over Congress candidate Milan Pradhan’s custody will take centre stage before Calcutta High Court on Thursday, 24 September, adding to the uncertainty surrounding the Nandigram Assembly by-poll scheduled for 6 October.
Pradhan’s lawyer will make an urgent mentioning before Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya, seeking his intervention over the Congress candidate’s continued custody in connection with a 2007 criminal case linked to the Nandigram anti-land acquisition movement.
Pradhan was arrested on 18 September, shortly after the Mamata Banerjee faction of the Trinamool Congress announced its support for his candidature. His lawyers have argued that the case in which he was arrested had not been mentioned by the state government’s advocate during Tuesday’s hearing on his plea seeking protection from coercive action.
The prosecution, however, has argued that whenever an election is held in an area, the police are required under an Election Commission guideline to execute pending arrest warrants before polling.
The state’s lawyer told the high court on Tuesday that 11 criminal cases were pending against Pradhan and that he had been remanded to judicial custody in connection with five of them.
Of the six other cases in which Pradhan had sought protection, the state said the previous TMC government had closed five and that he was not wanted in the remaining one. Pradhan was subsequently shown arrested in another criminal case involving murder and other charges and remanded to judicial custody until 7 October — a day after polling in Nandigram on 6 October, his lawyer said.
