New Delhi: The West Bengal Government today filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court against the Calcutta High Court's recent judgement in which it had sharply indicted the State for "unjustified" firing on innocent people in Nandigram on March 14.

The SLP mainly harps on the argument that the High Court had on November 16, came to a "premature conclusion" on the alleged excess of the government without properly evaluating the evidence on record, said sources associated with the SLP.

The SLP has claimed that the High Court should not have passed strictures on a writ petition as it amounted to a pre-trial of the case. Senior counsel and noted criminal lawyer K T S Tulsi is expected to appear on behalf of the state government.

On November 16, in a sharp indictment of the West Bengal Government, the Calcutta High Court termed the March 14 police firing in Nandigram as "wholly unconstitutional and unjustifiable" and directed the administration to compensate the families of each of the 14 victims with Rs five lakh.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice S S Nijjar and Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh while rejecting the state government's arguments justifying the firing, directed that the CBI inquiry into it would continue and asked the agency to submit a report within a month.

Source : PTI