Kolkata, May 2 -- Treating the matter of alleged mob-heckling of lawyers and maligning of a judge as a "criminal contempt", a three-judges bench of Calcutta High Court on Friday directed the Kolkata Police (KP) Commissioner Manoj Verma to identify the identify other members of the mob and preserve the CCTV footage of the incident.

The bench of Justices Arijit Banerjee, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya and Rajarshi Bharadwaj said: "We have gone through the material which have so far been brought on record, including the affidavits of persons who were present at the scene of occurrence. Prima facie, we are of the view that criminal contempt has been committed in this case by interfering with due administration of justice and scandalising the judiciary."

"Therefore, we will issue notice to these persons and grant them an opportunity to file an affidavit to explain themselves. If we are not satisfied with their explanation, we will issue a rule," the bench said.

The court directed the Kolkata Police Commissioner to identify other members of the mob and preserve the CCTV footage of the incident.

Further, the court directed that police protection should be given to the lawyers and the Commissioner must ensure that a similar incident does not happen in future.

The case will be heard next on May 19.

The court's attention on Monday was drawn by the members of the Calcutta High Court Bar which filed the contempt of court petition, alleging a violent mob made derogatory comments about Justice Biswajit Basu during protest demonstrations outside the chamber of senior advocate and CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharya opposite to High Court premises.

The incident created an air of panic among the advocates practising at the High Court.

The protestors had accused the senior advocate of being instrumental in the cancellation of jobs of candidates by the court. They allegedly used derogatory language against Justice Basu for some of his negative observations in some of these cases.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.