Jalpaiguri (West Bengal) [India], January 17 : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday, in a veiled attack on the BJP, urged the judiciary to protect the Constitution and democracy from a "disaster".
Addressing the gathering at the inauguration of the new building of the Circuit Bench, Jalpaiguri of the High Court at Calcutta, Mamata Banerjee asked the legal fraternity to aid the struggling junior lawyers.
The Chief Minister said, "Nowadays, few things are important: the Constitution, citizens of this country, the judiciary, and the media. My humble regards to all of you, please take care of our new generation. The junior lawyers are struggling. They are not getting proper benefits. We want to see that they get proper benefits. My request to Chief Justice and all the judges is that please see, our Constitution must be protected from disaster, our democracy must be protected from disaster and our safety, security, history, geography and boundary - all should be protected."
"The judiciary is the custodian of our Constitution. It is our request on behalf of all the people of this country that there should not be any casteism or religionism. Let us work together, let us speak for unity, let us think for unity, let us work for unity," she added.
Further, she asked the media not to indulge in a media trial and malign the image of the people.
"The media should not go for a media trial before finalising any cases. Nowadays, this is a trend of maligning people. So many agencies are defaming; there are deliberate attempts to defame. Please protect the people...Save democracy, save people, save democracy, save country, save constitution. We are under your custody. You are the guardians of the Constitution," Mamata said.
Alleging the Centre of stopping funds to West Bengal, she said that despite that, the state is running 88 fast-track courts.
"My Law Minister, please don't mind, though the Government of India stopped this fund, we are continuing 88 fast track courts. Out of that, 52 are for women and seven POCSO courts," Mamata Banerjee said.
The attack on the Centre comes amid the heated political climate in West Bengal, as the state is set to hold Legislative Assembly elections later this year.