Bengal CM urges CJI Kant to protect Constitution, judiciary, democracy
Jalpaiguri (PTI): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday urged Chief Justice of India Surya Kant to protect the country’s Constitution, democracy and judiciary.
Banerjee, speaking at a programme to inaugurate a new building of the Jalpaiguri Circuit Bench of the Calcutta High Court, also called upon Justice Kant to protect the people of the country from being wrongly targeted by “agencies”.
“Please protect the Constitution, democracy, judiciary, history and geography, as well as the country’s borders, from disaster,” she said, without elaborating.
“You (the CJI) are the guardian of our Constitution. We are under your legal guardianship. Nobody is superior to you in the judiciary. On behalf of the people of the country, we request that there should be no bias on the basis of caste or religion. Let us work, speak and think for unity,” she said.
Banerjee, also the TMC supremo, urged the CJI to ensure that “media trials” of cases before their disposal are stopped completely.
“There is a growing trend of media trials before cases are disposed of. This must stop,” she asserted.
The chief minister also urged Justice Kant to take care of the new generation of lawyers, alleging that junior lawyers were struggling and not receiving their due benefits.
Banerjee said that although the central government had “stopped funding” for fast-track courts in West Bengal, her government had set up 88 such courts.
“We have already spent more than Rs 1,200 crore on courts. Please do not mind (referring to Union Law and Justice Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal among the attendees); though the Centre has stopped the funding, we are continuing the fast-track courts,” she said.
Of these, 52 courts are for women, seven are POCSO courts, four labour courts, and 19 are human rights courts, the CM said.
She also said that the new Jalpaiguri Circuit Bench building was “better than the Calcutta High Court (building)”.
Around 40.08 acres of prime land was allocated for construction of the building here, and the state government spent more than Rs 500 crore on it, she said.
“We have given 14 acres of prime land to the Calcutta High Court for a new building in Rajarhat in New Town,” Banerjee said, adding, the state government has set up six district judges’ courts and eight sub-divisional judges’ courts.
Justice Kant, Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court Sujoy Paul, former Supreme Court judges, West Bengal Advocate General Kishore Datta, Meghwal, and state Law Minister Moloy Ghatak were among those present at the programme.
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US VP JD Vance says Lebanon not part of ceasefire, calls it ‘misunderstanding’
Budapest/Washington: US Vice President J D Vance has said that Lebanon was never included in the ceasefire understanding with Iran, describing the confusion as a “legitimate misunderstanding”.
Speaking to reporters before departing from Hungary, Vance said, “I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn’t. We never made that promise.”
He stressed that the United States had not included Lebanon in the scope of the ceasefire at any stage.
His remarks come amid continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon, where more than 200 people were reported killed, even as ceasefire talks between Iran and the US move forward.
Vance said Israel had “offered … to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful”.
He warned that if Iran allows the situation in Lebanon to affect the negotiations, it could derail the talks.
“If Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart in a conflict where they were getting hammered over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them and which the United States never once said was part of the ceasefire, that’s ultimately their choice,” he said.
