The Supreme Court on Monday ordered the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to take over cases related to the gherao of seven judicial officers in Malda, observing that the bureaucracy’s credibility was being lowered and politics was being injected into the West Bengal secretariat and government offices.A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi exercised its plenary power under Article 142 of the Constitution to transfer around 12 cases related to the April 1 incident, as rioting is not a scheduled offence under the NIA Act.It pulled up West Bengal Chief Secretary Dushyant Nariala, told him to apologise to the Calcutta High Court Chief Justice for not taking his calls on the day of the incident and said, “Lower yourself a little bit so that the Calcutta High Court Chief Justice can reach you. Give your apology to him.”The bench told the Chief Secretary, “It is a sheer failure of the administration of West Bengal. What kind of credibility do the senior officers of the West Bengal bureaucracy have? It is being lowered. Politics is being brought into the state secretariat and government offices.”It observed that there were serious allegations against the local police officials and the civil administration failed to deal with the situation when judicial officials were gheraoed.“The district magistrate and civil administration officials were only watching. They said what can be done, there are hundreds of women on the spot. How are hundreds of people allowed to gather at that spot? Had it not been for the efforts of the Chief Justice of India some unfortunate incident would have taken place,” Justice Bagchi said.The bench directed the West Bengal police to hand over all the arrested 26 accused to NIA for interrogation along with the case papers, saying the local police could not be trusted in the matter.The top court directed NIA to interrogate the kingpin of the incident, saying it appeared to be a well-planned and motivated incident.Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, appearing for NIA, said four FIR were registered by the local police in connection with the Malda incident involving judicial officers while eight others were registered related to blockades done in nearby areas. He said call detail records of 432 persons allegedly involved in the incident were examined.The bench asked NIA officer Sonia Singh to file further status reports related to the investigation in the case and inform the court if there were any impediments.It said the investigation report would be filed in the NIA court in Calcutta while periodic reports must be filed in the apex court.Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for the Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police, submitted that two persons, who were the kingpins, Mofakerrul Islam and Maulana Muhammad Shahjahan Ali Qadri, had already been arrested by the local police and were in custody.The bench clarified that NIA would be obligated to register further FIRs if, during the course of the investigation, it was found that additional offences had been committed, that the offences had wider dimensions, or that more persons were involved.On April 2, terming West Bengal the “most polarised state”, the top court slammed the administration for its “complete failure” and inaction over the “deplorable” gherao and attack on seven judicial officers in Malda district during the electoral roll revision drive and directed a CBI or NIA probe besides deployment of central forces in the poll-bound state.In a scathing indictment, the top court had said the incident “also exposes a complete failure of the state administration” and was a “brazen attempt not only to browbeat the judicial officers” but also amounted to challenging the Supreme Court’s authority.Dismissing the submissions that it was an “apolitical protest”, the top court had said it was “not a routine incident, rather, ex-facie a calculated, deliberate move to demoralise the judicial officers”.The apex court had directed the Election Commission to requisition and deploy adequate central forces at locations where judicial officers were assigned to adjudicate objections under the roll revision process.As many as 700 judicial officers from West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand are deployed in the ongoing SIR (Special Intensive Revision) process to deal with over 60 lakh objections of those who are excluded from the voter lists.It had taken suo motu cognisance of a letter from the Chief Justice of the high court detailing a harrowing night where judicial officers, including three women and a five-year-old child, were held captive by a mob for over nine hours without food or water.The incident occurred during the SIR exercise in the Kaliachowk area of Malda district and as per the order, seven judicial officers were gheraoed by “anti-social elements” at a BDO office starting at 3.30 pm.The Chief Justice of the high court was forced to intervene personally, placing group calls to the home secretary and the DGP, the top court had said, adding that the home secretary and the DGP arrived at the CJ’s residence and the judicial officers, who were held hostage, were relieved after midnight.Even after the rescue, the judicial officers’ vehicles were pelted with stones and attacked with sticks and bricks, the CJI said.