Calcutta High Court dismisses PIL to remove West Bengal Guv Jagdeep Dhankhar

Calcutta High Court on Friday dismissed Public Interest Litigation (PIL) with the plea to remove West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar.

The Calcutta High Court, Division Bench rejected the PIL seeking direction from the central government in a bid to remove Jagdeep Dhankhar as the governor of West Bengal. However, the court observed that the Governor is not liable to reply to the court.

The division bench, comprising Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice R Bharadwaj, observed said the Governor is not answerable to any court for the exercise and performance of the powers and duties of his office under Article 361 of Constitution.


Petitioner Rama Prasad Sarkar, an advocate at the High Court, claimed in the writ petition that Dhankhar, that the Governor is continuously interfering in the functioning of the state and also maligning the government.

The petitioner also claimed in the petition that Dhankhar is "acting as the mouthpiece of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)". The same has been claimed by the Trinamool for long, following continuous tussle between the Governor and the state government.

It is pertinent to mention that, Governor Dhankhar on Thursday had written a letter to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and called her to meet him at Raj Bhawan.

Dhankhar in his letter stated that his attempts to open dialogue from the state government functionaries didn't materialize for which he had called the Chief Minister to open ‘dialogue’, citing Article 167, which states that the Chief Minister is ‘liable’ to furnish information to the Governor.