Rath Yatra in West Bengal: BJP to move Supreme Court challenging Calcutta High Court’s order

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will move the vacation bench of the Supreme Court challenging the order of the division bench of the Calcutta High Court on the party's Rath Yatra in West Bengal.

A division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Friday quashed a single bench order that had allowed BJP's 'Rath Yatra' in West Bengal and asked it to hear the case afresh to consider intelligence inputs by state agencies. The single-judge bench of Tapabrata Chakraborty was asked to dispose of the matter expeditiously after considering whether there were adequate material to arrive at the conclusion to allow the 'yatra' as proposed by the BJP.

After hearing an appeal by the BJP, a single-judge bench of the high court had on Thursday allowed the mega event, to be flagged off by BJP president Amit Shah under a re-scheduled programme from December 28 to 31.

The West Bengal government, however, challenged the ruling before a division bench of Chief Justice Debasish Kargupta and Justice Shampa Sarkar, which has now quashed the earlier ruling and sent the case back to the single-judge bench.

The 'Rath Yatra', which was originally scheduled to start on December 7 but was denied permission by the state government, has become the latest political flashpoint between the saffron party and the state's ruling Trinamool Congress.