By IANS
Kolkata : Pushed on the back foot by a stinging snub of the Calcutta High Court, which termed the March 14 police firing on Nandigram villagers as illegal and unconstitutional, West Bengal’s ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Saturday accused the judiciary of “crossing limits”.
“Democracy is threatened when one of its pillars (here the judiciary) crosses its limits. It should stay within its parameters,” Left Front chairman Biman Bose said, addressing a CPI-M rally.
“If the court decides everything, then what is the use of the executive or the legislature in a democracy? What is the use of spending millions on elections? We can then have the judiciary only,” Bose said.
“A democracy cannot be run like this. If the central government thinks they can have democracy by increasing the salary of the judges, then so be it,” he said.
In a stinging criticism of the police role, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court Friday described the March 14 police firing on villagers in Nandigram, which claimed 14 lives, as “unjustified, unconstitutional” and “illegal”.
CPI-M leader Binoy Konar went a step further by describing Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi as a “Trinamool Congress flag bearer”.
Dripping sarcasm, the senior party leader said: “Everyone has the right to join politics. If the governor wants to hold the Trinamool Congress flag, then he can go ahead and do so. We don’t have any issue with that.”
The governor had expressed his outrage at the “armed recapture” of Nandigram, describing it “unacceptable” and “unlawful”.
At least 34 people have died in violence in Nandigram since January, sparked off by protests against the state government’s attempts to take over farmlands for industry.