Supreme Court wants to meet wife of West Bengal cop who killed self

Puzzled rw of senior cop, who named Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in his suicide note, chose to suddenly withdraw her plea for probe into her husband death, the Supreme Court on Thursday called the woman over for a personal interaction.

Fixing a date in July, the bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna said, "Before granting liberty to the petitioner to withdraw this writ petition, this Court would like to interact with her to know the reason for withdrawal." The SC asked her lawyer to intimate a suitable date in July, as per her convenience, to the Secretary General following which the matter was ordered to be listed.

Sreyashi Dutt, the widow of 1986 batch IPS officer Gaurav Chandra Dutt had openly spoken against Banerjee for humiliating and harassing her husband. He was found with his wrists slit in his Salt Lake residence on February 19, 2019. Dutt took voluntary retirement in December 2018. There were two false charges allegedly levelled against him. A woman alleged that her husband was tortured by Dutt after he resisted the officer who demanded sexual favours from her. The other complaint related to a vigilance enquiry over alleged financial irregularities. Dutt was suspended in 2010. He was dismissed from service and kept on compulsory waiting, during which period all his promotions and transfers were put on hold. He sought an opportunity to explain his position but was denied. Since the charge against him was of "conduct unbecoming of an officer" he was never taken back into service, following which he voluntarily retired.

But his agony did not end there as all his pension benefits and perks were kept on hold. He wrote about his agony to the CM accusing her for driving him to such a state. Relying on his note, Sreyashi came to SC to demand a fair probe.

On March 15, the SC received the request from Sreyashi seeking to withdraw her writ petition, the very first time the matter came up for hearing. On that day, the bench noted that Dutt's letter accompanied by an affidavit was dated March 14, 2019 and was sworn at Bidhannagar, Kolkata on the same date. The Court adjourned the case to May 9 and instead of accepting the request chose to ascertain whether the decision to withdraw the petition was taken under any threat or duress.