The high court on Monday issued an interim order restraining the Mamata Banerjee government from publishing advertisement declaring that it would not allow the Centre to implement the National Register of Citizens and the Citizens (Amendment) Act in Bengal till further order.
A division bench of Chief Justice T.B.N. Radhakrishnan and Justice Arijit Banerjee issued the order on a petition by advocate Nilanjan Bhattacharya who challenged the legality of the advertisements.
Moving the petition on Friday, Bhattacharya had claimed that the Constitution did not permit any state administration to defy a decision by the Union government. The petition said nor did the Constitution permit the state to publish advertisements with public funds, saying it would not even allow the Centre to implement its decisions.
After hearing Bhattacharya’s plea, the division bench had asked advocate general Kishore Dutta to take instruction from the state government in regard to the petitioner’s contention and inform the court about it on Monday.
Dutta told the judges on Monday that his government had stopped publishing such advertisement in the media at least till the disposal of the petition by the high court. “However, according to the Bengal government, there is no legal bar for states to defy a central act by publishing advertisement and in course of detailed hearing of the case, I will satisfy the court in this regard,” the advocate general said.
However, seeking to confute the state’s claim, the petitioner’s counsel said: “Even today, on the website of state police association, the said advertisement was published.”
The Chief Justice directed the state to take measures to ensure that the said association withdrew the advertisement forthwith and fixed January 9 for a detailed hearing on whether the state had the power to defy a central Act.
The division bench also deferred the hearing of petitions by advocate Smarajit Roy Chowdhury and six others, seeking the court’s intervention in alleged “anti-national activities” across the state by some people opposing the CAA and the role of chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her government in the violence.
The court asked the railways to file an affidavit stating details of the loses in the violence and the precaution taken to protect the properties.
The bench decided to hear those petitions also on January 9.
Former Congress MP Sardar Amjad Ai had moved a petition in the high court to challenge the constitutional validity of the CAA. But the Union government’s counsel Ashoke Chakrabarty informed that it had already moved a plea before the Supreme Court to hear Ali’s plea on January 22 along with 59 similar petitions.