The Calcutta High Court, on Tuesday, opted not to provide immediate relief to Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Abhishek Banerjee regarding his challenge against the proposed collection of his voice sample in the ongoing ‘DJ’ remark case. This decision was issued by a single-judge bench led by Justice Tirthankar Ghosh.
The case was brought before Justice Ghosh, who observed that similar matters are currently pending with another single-judge. Subsequently, Justice Ghosh suggested that the current plea should be consolidated and heard by the same judge handling the related cases.
Justice Ghosh stated, “Considering that the main issue revolves around the maintainability of the FIR and the continuation of the investigation, and that the criminal proceedings are pending before the Co-ordinate Bench in WPA 11489 of 2026, for the sake of justice, it is deemed proper that a single court should address the issues raised in the present revisional application.” Consequently, Justice Ghosh has directed that Banerjee’s plea be presented to the Acting Chief Justice for assignment to the appropriate Bench.
The contentious issue involves remarks made by Banerjee during the West Bengal Assembly election campaigns, where he allegedly stated that after the election results, DJs would play such loud music that people’s ears would ring. A voter filed a criminal complaint claiming that the remark was both intimidating and provocative.
Last week, the West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) received permission from a trial court to collect Banerjee’s voice sample as part of its investigation. Reports indicate that Banerjee was supposed to appear before the trial court to have his voice sample recorded in the presence of experts. Nevertheless, Banerjee reportedly did not attend the hearing, while his legal team pursued a challenge against the voice sample collection in the High Court.
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Banerjee’s counsel highlighted that a separate Bench of the High Court had previously issued an interim order, preventing the police from taking coercive actions against Banerjee concerning cases related to allegedly objectionable election speeches until July 31. This interim order, issued by Justice Saugata Bhattacharya, was in response to Banerjee’s plea to quash the cases against him. The May 21 order stated that while Banerjee is expected to cooperate with the investigation, the State could request a modification of the order if he failed to do so.
The State argued before Justice Ghosh that Banerjee’s latest plea regarding the voice sample collection was an attempt to evade cooperation with the investigation. After evaluating the arguments from both sides, Justice Ghosh declined to issue any interim directions, except to place the matter before Justice Saugata Bhattacharya, who is slated to hear Banerjee’s petition to dismiss the main case.
Representing Abhishek Banerjee were Senior Advocates Sabyasachi Banerjee and Ayan Bhattacharjee, along with Advocates Rudradipta Nandy, Agnish Basu, Bikram Mitra, Vipul Vedant, Shounak Mondal, and Gourav Bose. The State was represented by Additional Advocate General Rajdeep Mazumder, Public Prosecutor Kallol Mondal, and Advocate Moyukh Mukherjee. The complainant’s legal team included Advocates Amritam Mondal, Arindam Samanta, Rajdeep Majumder, Arindam Bit, Arka Mukherjee, and Supratim Mukherjee.
[Read Order]
