BJP Yuva Morcha leader alleges sexual assault by BJP legal cell head Lokenath Chatterjee; Calcutta High Court grants interim relief to Chatterjee

The Calcutta High Court on Monday temporarily restrained Manish Kumar Bissa, the head of the Information Technology (IT) Cell of the Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal, from publishing or circulating any defamatory articles in relation to the sexual assault allegations made by him against BJP legal cell convenor, Lokenath Chatterjee [Lokenath Chatterjee v Manish Bissa]..Justice Arindam Mukherjee found that Chatterjee had succeeded in making out a prima facie case. Therefore, an interim ex-party order of injunction was granted in his favour.“The defendant (Bissa), at this stage, is restrained by an order of injunction from publishing, reporting, broadcasting or circulating any defamatory or insinuating article or report against the plaintiff (Chatterjee) concerning the allegations contained in his complaint letter to the All India President of BJP in any manner whatsoever until further orders," the Court said. .Despite the injunction, the judge clarified that this order did not prevent any print or electronic media from reporting, broadcasting or circulating any fact relating to the subject matter of the complaint in a “responsible manner”..The issue arose when Bissa filed a complaint against Chatterjee along with two Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) jawans, accusing them of sexual assault. Bissa also accused Chatterjee of outraging religious feelings, voluntarily causing hurt, assault, wrongful confinement, trafficking, unnatural offences, criminal intimidation, and criminal conspiracy.As per the first information report (FIR) filed by Bissa, Chatterjee took him to Sikkim under the grab of party related work. However, on arriving at Sikkim he found that this was an “open and shut case” of sexual coercion.The FIR stated that since Bissa refused Chatterjee's sexual advances, the CISF jawans along with Chatterjee threatened his life and humiliated him.“The accused dragged me by my Shikha (choti – long tuft or a lock of hair on the back of the head of a male Hindu) after opening it and made me sit in the vehicle.. I, being dragged by my Shikha has deeply hurt my religious sentiments,” the FIR said.It also stated that Chatterjee said that he would “manage” a complaint against Bissa filed with the Home Ministry in New Delhi.“Kindly note that the Commission of the offence is commenced when I left my house pursuant to the accused persons by practicing fraud, deception and abuse of power to sexually exploit me, misrepresented that we were going to Sikkim for party work of the BJP and continued to subsist till we reached Kolkata”, the complaint said. .Before the High Court, Chatterjee argued that Bissa was acting in vengeance and using his contacts as a press reporter to start publishing defamatory articles.He claimed that in the absence of finality being arrived in relation to the allegations made against him, if such articles continue to be circulated, it would cause irreparable damage to his reputation and career..The matter will be heard further on November 16, 2022..Advocates Swatarup Banerjee, Dhiraj Trivedi, Sarijul Haque, Sukanta Ghosh, M Chatterjee, Partha Chakraborty, Ranjana Chatterjee, Rivu Dutta, Sudip Palit, Dibendu Banerjee, Anjan Maskar and Pintu Kar appeared for Lokenath Chatterjee..[Read Order]