The West Bengal government can form a commission headed by a retired judge to investigate the Chorbagan Durga Puja stampede in Kolkata, but cannot appoint a serving judge to the panel, the Calcutta High Court said during a hearing on Tuesday, according to Sangbad Pratidin. Nineteen people died after a crowd surge and the collapse of a pandal gate at the Chorbagan Sarbojanin puja venue during the festival.
The hearing followed a request from the state government for a commission led by a judge. The request was made after Chief Secretary Manoj Agarwal wrote to the Chief Justice on Monday, following a direction from Chief Minister Shuvendu Adhikari, as reported by the Bengali-language newspaper. A separate public interest litigation concerning the incident was also listed before the court.
During the hearing, Chief Justice Rabindra V. Ghug reportedly referred to the Supreme Court’s position on appointing serving judges to commissions of inquiry. The court said that a serving judge could not be appointed for the proposed commission under the applicable Supreme Court directions. It also cited the limited availability of judges as a reason for not constituting such a commission with a sitting member of the judiciary.
The High Court’s clarification leaves the state government free to establish a commission led by a retired judge of its choice. The court’s observation addresses the composition of the proposed inquiry rather than the findings of the investigation. Those findings will have to establish how the crowd movement, gate failure and emergency conditions combined to cause the deaths, based on the evidence collected by the commission.
The state had sought a judicially led investigation after the incident, while proposing that representatives of the Kolkata Police, the fire services and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation should not be included in the commission. The request followed the chief minister’s public statement that the tragedy should be investigated by a commission headed by a judge.
The stampede occurred on the evening of Saptami, the first major evening of the Durga Puja celebrations, amid rain and heavy crowds, according to the report. The incident has raised questions about crowd management, access control, temporary festival structures and coordination among civic and emergency-response agencies. The reported death toll makes it one of the most serious recent disasters during Kolkata’s puja season.
The immediate institutional question is now whether the state will formally constitute the commission under a retired judge and define its terms of reference. The inquiry will be expected to examine the sequence of events at the venue and determine responsibility for the failures that led to the loss of 19 lives.
