But in this case just within 24 hours of the court order, the director of the CBI set up 4 teams, which will have 96 personnel to probe the atrocities. The teams will be headed by officers of the rank of joint directors Ramnish, Anurag, Vineet Vinayak and Sampat Meena. What is really interesting to watch is each team will have seven members, including four superintendents called from across the country.

In fact through its action the CBI intends to convey the message that the enormity of the crime has been so atrocious and of high magnitude that it needed it to depute its expert big guns. Those who have been keeping watch and track of the activities of CBI express their dismay at the promptness and deployment of so many senior officials for unearthing the truth. The overall probe will be supervised by Additional Director Ajay Bhatnagar.

The CBI has also sought the details of such cases from the state director general of police. The people of the state would have felt more concerned and delighted if the CBI had been entrusted with the task to find out how the EC treated those cases which were referred to it. Whether the EC played a more positive role in directing the administration to register the complaints made by the alleged victims and the nature of the information of the complaints and the number of cases it received from the district magistrates.

This would have helped the court to derive the conclusion what role the district administration really played? Whether the EC deliberately allowed the situation to deteriorate. It is a known fact that the district administration of Cooch Behar where the CISF shot dead five youths has preferred to maintain a passive approach and attitude to the incident. By asserting that EC was only concerned with conducting of the election and the administration was with the government, the EC was blatantly evading its responsibility.

It is on record that EC had changed the top police officials including the DGP and brought in officers of its choice. These officers continued in their till the election process was over and Mamata took charge. Obviously in this backdrop the EC could not evade its moral responsibility. The fact cannot be denied that EC had directed the administration to transfer officials with administrative duties and post them according to its direction at the time when it was in charge of the election.

This acquires more importance as "definite and proved" allegations were received by the NHRC that complaints of the victims of violence in the aftermath of the West Bengal assembly polls were not even registered. The probe must probe who has been responsible for this neglect. Why the complaints were not registered? The probe must identify the time frame when the refusal took place, recognise the officer and fix the responsibility.

At this stage the observation of the Justice I P Mukherjee is worth mentioning. In his order he noted that between the polls and assumption of office by the new government, the Election Commission should have played a more positive role in directing the administration to register the complaints. Since the EC did not direct it should be charged with dereliction of duty. It could also be a deliberate move. The EC helped its political masters to prepare the ground for the dismissing the Mamata government.

As the magnitude of the investigation points to the fact that major political interests are at stake, obviously even at this stage it is still imperative that the role of the EC and NHRC should be probed. The nature of dissent raised by the two judges sharing the bench with the chief justice deserved to be looked into proper perspective

Since the two members of the NHRC committeeRajul Desai and Atif Rasheed had links to the BJP it obviously implied that they brandish huge political influence. Had they not been enjoying immense political clout and proximity to the political rulers, the chairman of the NHRC Arun Mishra certainly not had inducted them into the committee. The content and nature of the report makes it explicit that they dictated the proceedings of the committee and had major say in drafting of the report. Mishra could have avoided their inclusion. The team has gone beyond its jurisdiction is also pointed out Justice Mukherjee who mentioned that the panel only had powers to report on facts as gathered by them during the investigation.

The NHRC team was on the fact finding mission, its findings could not be treated as statutory directives. Justices Mukherji and Soumen Sen concurred with the order but raised some objections about the actions of the NHRC's fact finding committee. He even observed; "Although the fact finding committee has made scathing remarks and made recommendations against politicians and police officers I am of the view that such remarks and recommendations were uncalled for and to that extent the committee has transgressed its limits".

Obviously when the judges were not in complete agreement with the NHRC report, it becoming the basis for the future probe should have been avoided. Opposing the findings and recommendations of the NHRC committee report, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the state DGP, had claimed during submissions that it was erroneous and biased.

Meanwhile the observation of the Justice Tandon ought to be taken quite seriously. In his observation he mentions; “There may be cases which are not relatable to post-poll violence but the persons have been deprived of their rights being not addressed through a well-recognised system in place and therefore there is no fetter on the part of the Court to entrust investigation to impartial, independent agency constituted for the purpose of rendering justice to deprived persons".

There is no denying that a person must not be deprived from getting justice. He deserves it. But how any incident of violence which is not at all related to election or does not fall into the ambit of post poll violence should find the place in the report which is supposed to deal with only cases of post poll violence. It is simply a deliberate move of the NHRC team to prepare a voluminous report. It also implies that the members of the team nursed bias attitude against the state and were serving the interest of their political masters. The promptness of the CBI to constitute the team must be seen in the backdrop of the content and character of the NHRC report. (IPA Service)