Kolkata, Sept. 24 -- The Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed police not to take any step against Congress candidate Milan Pradhan in a 2007 Khejuri police station case till October 12 and ordered that he shall not be treated as arrested.
Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya questioned why an investigating officer sought his "shown arrest" nearly 19 years after the case was registered.
The order came after the court was informed that the case had not been disclosed during the September 22 hearing, when it was told Pradhan was in custody in five other prosecutions and faced no other pending case.
The state later produced a September 19 trial court order seeking his "shown arrest" on the basis of an arrest warrant and claimed a production warrant was subsisting. The High Court found no document showing the warrant had been served on Pradhan and rejected the state's contention regarding its execution.
The court also found it "surprising" that the investigating officer sought the "shown arrest" only on September 19, 2026, in a case dating to 2007.
The state has challenged the order before a division bench headed by Chief Justice Ravindra Vitharao Ghuge, which is likely to hear the matter on Friday. Justice Tirthankar Ghosh is also scheduled to pronounce his order on Pradhan's bail pleas that day.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.