While reserving the verdict on the subject, the apex court bench of Justice P.Sathasivam and Justice B.S.Chauhan on Tuesday said, “The allegation is that without a FIR or complaint, the police called the couple and pressured them to enter into an agreement (by which Priyanka Todi was taken back to her father Ashok Todi’s home). Now it is a matter of investigation or disciplinary inquiry.”
The Supreme Court was hearing case relates to involving the marriage of Rizwanur Rehman with Priyanka Todi on August 18, 2007 and the unnatural death of Rizwanur Rehman after he was found dead on the railway tracks between Dumdum and Bidan Nagar police station in Kolkata on September 21, 2007. Rizwanur believed to have faced the wrath of Ashok Todi for marrying his daughter Priynaka. Todi is a powerful businessman of west Bengal.
Earlier Kishwar Jahan the mother of Rizwan told Supreme Court that the right to love and marriage was a part of the fundamental right to live and Kolkata police cops who acted in its violation in Rizwanur Rehman-Priyanka Todi inter-religious marriage case should be made to accountable for death of her son.
“Whether murder or suicide. It is a matter of investigation and I will have to accept it. Even if it is a suicide it is because of the pressure brought on my son Rizwanur Rehman and the abetment of the police and also by the Todis and they should not go unpunished”, Kishwar Jahan told the Supreme court through her lawyer senior counsel Kalyan Bandyopadhyay.
Appearing for Kishwar Jahan, senior counsel Kalyan Bandyopadhyay said, “the chain of facts and sequence of events points to interference in the personal life of Rizwanur Rehman-Priyanka Todi. Calling them to Lal Bazar police headquarter is illegal as there was no cognizable crime registered against them.”
Bandyopadhyay told the court that the right to live also meant right not to be disturbed. He said that the conduct of Kolkata police interfered with Rizwan-Priyanka Todi’s marital right and was contrary to the earlier apex court verdict on the role of State in inter-caste or inter-religious marriages.
Appearing for the CBI, the Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium told the court that the Division Bench “judgment is completely inconsistent as one part of judgment does not meet the other part of judgment.”.
There were allegations that state police at the highest level, were harassing Rizwanur Rehman, at the behest of Ashok Todi. Following these allegations the single judge of the Calcutta High Court on October 16, 2007 ordered probe by the CBI, which found Todi guilty of abetment of suicide of Rizwanur Rehman. On May 18, 2010, the Division Bench of the High Court set aside the said order of the single judge and ordered a fresh probe by the CBI directing the registering a case of murder of Rizwanur Rehman. This order of the Division Bench was challenged by all including the CBI, Kishwar Jahan and Ashok Todi.
The death of Rizwan a computer graphic designer, who married Priyanka Todi the daughter of a prominent business family hit the headlines for months and it pit question mark on the credibility of west Bengal police.
