Press Council of India chairman Markandey Katju on Thursday advised West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to mend her ways or else she would not remain chief minister for long. In an email, Justice Katju pointed out a number of her mistakes, including the arrest of Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mahapatra and farmer Siladitya Chowdhury. Citing the example of the suspension of policemen who arrested two girls in Mumbai for posting messages on the death of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, Justice Katju advised her to take similar action against the policemen who ordered and implemented their arrests. He asked her to publicly apologise to both Prof. Mahapatra and Mr Chowdhury and withdraw the cases against them. Prof. Mahapatra was arrested for forwarding a cartoon of Ms Banerjee on a social networking site. Mr Chowdhury was arrested for asking the chief minister what she was doing to reduce the price of fertiliser.
Justice Katju also advised her to apologise to Presidency University student Tanya Bhardwaj “whom she insulted” during an interactive programme which was aired live on CNN-IBN. “We all make mistakes but a gentleman is one who realises his mistake and apologises,” he added.
Justice Katju went on to urge the chief minister to restore Damyanti Sen to her earlier position of joint commissioner of police (crime). He described Ms Sen as an “upright officer” whom he alleged was “wrongly victimised”. Ms Sen was removed from her important post in Kolkata police and transferred to an insignificant position because she had cracked the Park Street gangrape case.