SC no to notice on TMC MP’s plea against HC judge

SC no to notice on TMC MP’s plea against HC judge

The Supreme Court on Friday declined to issue notice on Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee’s plea for “necessary action” against Calcutta High Court judge Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay claiming he had been giving “politically motivated” interviews.

“You are seeking a writ of mandamus to take action against a judge for ‘politically motivated’ interviews. We shouldn’t be issuing notice on this,” said Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, presiding over a three-judge bench comprising Justices Manoj Mishra and Satish Chandra Sharma.

The bench, however, agreed to consider his prayer to transfer the proceedings in the teachers’ recruitment scam case pending before the single-judge bench of Justice Amrita Sinha of the Calcutta High Court.

The court said it will tag the plea with the medical admissions scam matter, being heard by a five-judge bench headed by CJI Chandrachud, which it had transferred to itself from the HC.

On January 24, a single-judge bench of Justice Gangopadhyay had ordered a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in the admission of MBBS candidates in state-run medical colleges and hospitals in West Bengal. However, the state government moved the division bench of Justices Soumen Sen and Uday Kumar, which ordered an interim stay on the single-bench order. The state government had made a verbal appeal before the division bench, which admitted the petition.

A day later, Justice Gangopadhyay ordered that the CBI probe into the matter shall continue. He also said in the order that he “was told” by another judge, Justice Amrita Sinha, “some days back… that Justice Sen called her in his chamber on the last day before vacation and like a political leader, he dictated Justice Sinha three things: i) Mr Abhishek Banerjee has a political future, he should not be disturbed; ii) live-streaming shall be stopped in Justice Sinha’s court; iii) the two writ petitions before Justice Sinha, where the name of Mr Abhishek Banerjee is involved, are to be dismissed”.

On January 29, the SC which took suo motu cognisance of the developments, transferred the matter to itself.

On Friday, the CJI asked senior counsel A M Singhvi who appeared for Banerjee “if you are aggrieved by the conduct of Justice Gangopadhyay, why should we be transferring something from Justice Amrita Sinha’s bench”?

Singhvi said “Justice Gangopadhyay had alleged that Justice Sen spoke to Justice Sinha about Abhishek Banerjee’s case”.

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