New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday, September 28, asked the Union government and others to respond to the West Bengal government’s appeal against the Calcutta high court order directing a court-monitored CBI probe into the cases of rape and murder during the post-poll violence in the state.A bench comprising Justices Vineet Saran and Aniruddha Bose, however, refused to direct the CBI against registering any more FIRs in such cases, saying no order should be passed without hearing the other side.“You have made out the case for issuance of the notice,” the bench told senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Mamata Banerjee government. The apex court has fixed the case for hearing next on October 7.LiveLaw has reported that Sibal said that the Calcutta high court had “stretched” the definition of post-poll violence, including “even ordinary crimes which took place after the government was formed.”Sibal also said that the state government had been asked to “respond to thousands of complaints within seven days,” which he said was unfair.A five-judge bench of the Calcutta high court had ordered a CBI investigation into cases of serious crimes in West Bengal after the assembly poll results were announced earlier this year.The high court had directed that lesser crimes that took place in the immediate aftermath of the polls be investigated by a Special Investigation Team under the monitoring of the court.The court had accepted the recommendations of a National Human Rights Commission committee, which had come to the state on a fact-finding trip after it was formed by NHRC chairman and former Supreme Court judge Arun Mishra on a direction by a five- judge bench of the Calcutta high court.West Bengal chief minister Banerjee accused the NHRC of “disrespecting the court” and pursuing the Bharatiya Janata Party’s line of “political vendetta” by leaking its report to the media.Sibal, as counsel of the Banerjee government, said to the Supreme Court that the NHRC panel had comprised members who had affiliation with the BJP and did not follow proper procedure under the Protection of Human Rights Act, according to the LiveLaw report.Several public interest litigations filed before the high court had pleaded for investigation into violence, citing that hundreds had been subjected to assault, made to flee their houses, and that property was destroyed in the days following the announcement of results of the Bengal polls.The Wire’s coverage of the post-poll violence highlighted that the assaults had affected people of the state disproportionately, wreaking most havoc on the lowest rung of BJP workers and women across almost the whole state. At the same time, communal incitement had added fuel to the fire, triggering rampant spread of news which later emerged to be fake, thus taking attention from instances of real violence.(With PTI inputs)