Amidst statewide rumour over filling of anticipatory bail application of renowned senior advocate Samrat Kar Bhowmik  over his alleged involvement as defense lawyer with the sensational murder of club secretary of Bharat Ratna Sangha of Usha Bazar, Durga Prasanna Deb alias Viki, who was shot dead on April 30 night.

Clearing all doubts over his anticipatory bail petition in the Session court of Agartala, senior advocate Samrat Kar Bhowmik on Tuesday speaking with media persons said that in the murder case of Durga Prasanna Deb alias Viki, he stood as defense lawyer for arrested three persons including Sandip Kar alias Akash, Birchakra Ghosh, younger brother prime accused Prabakar Ghosh and Sunny Saha, brother-in-law of another prime accused Raju Barman.

He said that the investigation officer (IO) of the murder case, Prajit Malakar has came to his residence and had served a notice under 91 of CrPc and in the notice police said that accused Sunny Saha during interrogation has revealed that the hard disk of CCTV footage of accused Raju Barman has handed over to him and as per the police notice, they asked me to handed over the said hard disk to police.

“ for sake of argument, if we say that accused Sunny Saha has given the CCTV footage hard disk, under section-3 of Evidence Act, it’s a evidence of defense and it is not evidence of offence,” said Kar Bhowmik and added that there is no provision of crime under 201 of IPC to handed over the evidences to a defense lawyer for self-defense of any suspected accused person.

He said that if Sunny Saha handed over him the weapon of crime, pistol as per the police version, then it would be a crime as per evidence of crime.

Kar Bhowmik added that as per the ruling of Supreme Court and High Court, a suspected accused never handover the self-defense evidence to police as police can destroy or tempered this evidence and it is always handed over to defense counsel.

Seeing the condition of all arrested his clients inside the police lockups, Section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) of 1973 over fear of police arrest, Kar Bhowmik has filed an anticipatory bail petition before the Session court of West Tripura.

“As a heart patient, I have no option to file bail petition as police can arrest me and will forcefully try to get the evidence of defense to frame forge charges on my clients,” said Kar Bhowmik and added that police want to take custody of the hard disk for the purpose of investigation and police might arrest him to get the same.

He said that if he submits or produces the said hard disk to police, he will become a witness in the case and a witness can never be a defense counsel.

While, the hearing of the anticipatory bail petition  has been fixed on April 17.

“The police act over submission of notice to him is derogatory and in protest he has submitted his resignation to the Law department seeking exemption from all the cases that he is handling as Tripura government as Special Public Prosecutor.