Pradhan is already in judicial custody in two other cases following separate orders of a district court in West Bengal. He was sent to judicial custody till October 3 in a murder case registered against him in 2007.
In another case, the same court sent him to judicial custody till October 5. The District Court judge also directed the police to produce him before the court on September 23.
Meanwhile, Pradhan, through his lawyer, approached a single-judge bench of Justice Saugata Bhattacharya in the high court seeking interim protection from punitive police action, including arrest, in five cases registered against him in 2007 related to the land acquisition movement in Nandigram during the then Left Front government.
The hearing of the case took place on Tuesday afternoon. After a brief hearing, Justice Bhattacharya declined to intervene and said no direction from the High Court was required in the five cases.
During the hearing, Pradhan's lawyer Ayan Bhattacharya argued that the manner in which his client was arrested in the 19-year-old case, especially just before the Nandigram by-election, showed that the state administration was attempting to destabilize the democratic process.