Kolkata Police book Mamata Banerjee over the Cathedral Road rally

Kolkata Police registered a case against Mamata Banerjee and organisers of the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad after a foundation-day programme on Cathedral Road on Friday. The FIR was filed at Hastings Police Station as Case No. 112, dated 28 August. Police confirmed the filing on Saturday.

The complaint, signed by sub-inspector Apu Baidya, alleges that Banerjee and the organisers entered a criminal conspiracy and broke conditions set by the Calcutta High Court. The case cites Sections 61(2), 223, 125(a), 132 and 285 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. The allegations have not been tested in court.

What the court allowed

Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya had, on Tuesday, permitted the TMCP event on one flank of Cathedral Road in central Kolkata. He directed that the other flank stay open to traffic. He also told organisers to try to keep attendance within 1,500 and told police to keep order.

The police account says workers and supporters occupied both flanks, blocked vehicles, and continued past the permitted close. Banerjee addressed the gathering. Party MPs Kalyan Banerjee, Babul Supriyo and Dola Sen were on the stage with her.

A senior officer said the role of everyone involved will be examined. He described the FIR as following a check of the court's conditions against what officers saw on the road.

The political setting

Banerjee is no longer chief minister. The police force that booked her now answers to a different government in the state. On Friday, at the same event, she had called the police a monstrous entity. The FIR landed the next day.

Trinamool Congress called the case political vendetta. The Bharatiya Janata Party backed the police. Neither statement changes the legal point. A High Court order set a map and a clock for a street meeting. The police say the map and the clock were ignored. The accused say the case is a tool.

Street rallies in Kolkata often spill beyond the lane assigned to them. What is new is the combination of a named former chief minister, a written judicial limit of 1,500 people, and a suo motu case filed within a day. That combination will now move from a police station diary to a magistrate's list.

What the sections cover

The BNS sections listed in the FIR deal with conspiracy, disobedience of a public servant's order, and acts that endanger the public on a road. They are the ordinary tools police use for a procession that leaves its permitted box. They are also easy to add and hard to drop once an FIR exists.

Investigation will have to show who gave the instruction to occupy the closed flank, whether Banerjee herself directed that move, and how many people were on the road against the 1,500 cap. Video from the junction will matter more than the press notes.

Until a charge sheet appears, the fact on record is narrower. A police station in central Kolkata has put the Trinamool leader's name on an FIR for a rally the High Court had already boxed in. The court that wrote the box will be asked, soon, whether the box was broken.