File affidavits on VB row: High court

Kolkata/Birbhum: The Calcutta High Court has directed stakeholders to file affidavits following a PIL praying for a CBI probe into the recent vandalism at Visva-Bharati.
A division bench of Chief Justice Thottathil B Radhakrishnan and Justice Shampa Sarkar on Tuesday directed Visva-Bharati, Sriniketan-Santiniketan Development Authority and the state to file affidavits by September 16 and slated the next date of hearing for September 18.
State advocate-general Kishore Dutta questioned the maintainability of the PIL on the grounds that VB did not need legal aid through a PIL. The division bench kept the matter open till the PIL hearing. Earlier in the day, state BJP president Dilip Ghosh in Birbhum’s Kirnahar supported VB’s stand of protecting its property without going into the arguments over fencing off Poush Mela grounds: “The campus and the land need to be protected from land sharks. The Trinamool-backed land mafia have already occupied a huge portion of Visva-Bharati.”