West Bengal's Trinamool Congress government will on Wednesday appeal against a Calcutta High Court order directing a CID probe into the rape and violence remarks by party MP Tapas Paul.
"Paul has already tendered a public apology and we feel initiating criminal proceeding against him is uncalled for. So the government will be filing an appeal before a division bench on Wednesday," state Law Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya had told a news agency on Tuesday.
Hearing a petition seeking criminal proceedings against Paul, Justice Dipankar Datta had on Monday directed the CID to probe the matter and submit a report to the court by September 1.
The actor-turned-politician was caught on successive tapes asking his party activists in his constituency in Nadia district to prove themselves by killing Communist Party of India-Marxist activists even as he himself asserted that he would gun down his rivals and let loose his "boys" to rape the Marxist women.