Kolkata, Mar 19 (IANS): West Bengal government, on Tuesday, approached the division bench of Calcutta High Court against the “contempt of court” ruling issued earlier by a single-judge bench of the same court against its three top officials.

The officials had failed to adhere to an earlier order regarding the handover of a particular probe to NIA.

On March 15, the single-judge bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha issued the “contempt of rule” against state Chief Secretary B.P. Gopalika, the state Home Secretary Nandini Chakraborty and the additional Director General of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), R. Rajasekaran. It also directed them to be physically present at his bench on April 5 and explain why the court passed in May last year was not adhered to.

However, on Tuesday the state government approached the division bench of Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya challenging the “contempt of rule”. The matter will come up for hearing at the division bench on April 5.

On May 10, 2023, Justice Mantha ordered an NIA probe on the alleged murder of two former school students at North Dinajpur district in September 2018.

Justice Mantha ordered the NIA probe in the murder of Tapas Burman and Rajesh Sarkar, former students of Darivit High School in North Dinajpur district on September 20, 2018 within the school compound.

However, since the state government did not implement the order even after ten months since the time the order was passed, the family members of one of the victims approached Justice Mantha's bench again.