Calcutta High Court Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty issued show-cause notice on Friday (Jan. 18) against West Bengal Medical Council (WBMC) Registrar and Returning Officer, Mr. Manas Chakraborty, in response to a contempt of court petition filed by PBT president, Dr. Kunal Saha, for disobeying court’s earlier order (see report in Statesman below). In August 2018, HC had directed WBMC to print new ballots with Dr. Saha as a candidate for election of new WBMC members as the 5-year term of the present members expired last November.
Dr. Saha had alleged that WBMC had rejected Dr. Saha’s application to contest in the council election because of personal animosity on the flimsy ground that Dr. Saha had written his name in the nomination paper as Kunal Saha and not as “Saha Kunal” which is the way it is written on Dr. Saha’s registration certificate. Calcutta HC agreed with Dr. Saha and held that there was no reason to dismiss Dr. Saha’s nomination paper on this obvious anomaly with his name and directed the Returning Officer (Registrar) to print new ballots with Dr. Saha’s name as a candidate. Interestingly, no election for new WBMC was held till now as the matter has been stayed by another bench of Calcutta HC. While there is wide-spread hostility among the members of the medical community toward PBT and Dr. Saha for their role in helping the victims of “medical negligence” in India, Dr. Saha contested in the council election last time to stem the corruption in the election process that has been rigged in the past by influential doctors linked with the ruling political party. The present WBMC president, Dr. Nirmal Maji, is a sitting MLA for the ruling TMC party in West Bengal who was promoted recently to be the Minister of Labour by Bengal CM, Mamata Banerjee, even after he was indicted for serious criminal offense including extortion of funds from the medical council (IPC Section 409).
