The apex court passed the order on an application moved by the investigating agency seeking vacation of its December 13, 2007 order when the CBI was restrained from prosecuting the cops.
The Supreme Court today sought response from the West Bengal government on CBI's plea for allowing criminal prosecution of police officials responsible for the Nandigram firing in March 2007 in which 14 persons were killed.
A bench of justices RV Raveendran and HL Gokhale issued the notice on the CBI's application seeking vacation of the stay on the prosecution of the police officials which the apex court had ordered on state government's plea in 2007.
The court asked the state government to file its counter affidavit within two weeks.
The apex court passed the order on an application moved by the investigating agency seeking vacation of its December 13, 2007 order when the CBI was restrained from prosecuting the cops.
During the brief arguments today, senior counsel KK Venugopal, appearing for the state government, opposed CBI's plea and submitted that the high court had taken an erroneous decision by allowing proceedings against the cops.
He contended that the high court view that the police ought not to have fired at the agitators directly and should have instead fired over the heads to move them away was wrong as under the rules cops were entitled to fire directly at the agitators as firing over the head in a crowd would result in innocent bystanders being hit.
Following the incident, the Calcutta high court had asked CBI to inquire as to what prompted the police to open fire when thousands of villagers had gathered to protest against attempts by the police to enter Nandigram.
The report was filed by the agency before the high court on February 15, 2008.
The state government had challenged the high court order indicting it for "unjustified" firing on innocent people in Nandigram and issuing a direction for paying a uniform compensation of Rs five lakh to each of the 14 persons killed and Rs two lakh and Rs one lakh to those raped and injured.
The apex court had on December 13, 2007, restrained CBI from initiating criminal proceedings in court against police officials for the Nandigram firing till its further order.
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