Kolkata: Have you heard of a high court judge blasting a fellow-judge and urging Supreme Court to revisit the orders passed by the latter?
The unprecedented development took place in the Calcutta High Court.
And Supreme Court has taken cognizance immediately, forming a five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud to hear the matter on the morning of January 27.
It was Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay who accused Justice Soumen Sen of ‘misconduct’, claiming that the latter was acting in the interest of the ruling political party (Trinamool Congress).
On January 24, Justice Gangopadhyay — hearing a petition against alleged practice of issuing fake caste certificates being rampant in West Bengal – ordered a CBI probe into irregularities in medical admission in the state.
However, a division bench of Justice Sen stayed the single-judge order of Justice Gangopadhyay.
Justice Gangopadhyay then directed the registrar general of the high court to send a copy of the order to Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and also Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court forthwith.
“Justice Sen is clearly acting for some political party in this state and, therefore, the orders passed in the matters involving the state are required to be relooked if the Hon’ble Supreme Court thinks so,” Justice Gangopadhyay said.
“What Justice Sen has done is to advance the cause of his personal interest to save some political party in power in this state. Therefore, his actions clearly tantamount to misconduct,” Justice Gangopadhyay added.
On Wednesday, Justice Gangopadhyay had ordered the state’s Advocate General Kishore Datta to hand over the probe – into allegations that several persons have obtained fake certificates to get admission to medical courses – papers to CBI.
Soon after, the Advocate General mentioned the matter before a division bench of Justices Sen and Uday Kumar.
AG Datta told the division bench that Justice Gangopadhyay had not allowed the state to effectively place on record steps taken to investigate the case.
The division bench, after considering the state’s submissions, stayed the single-bench order of Justice Gangopadhyay.
The division bench said in its order passed on Thursday that the petitioner before the single judge had not prayed for a CBI investigation.
The division bench also noted that Justice Gangopadhyay, while ordering a CBI probe, relied on the attack on ED officers in the state a few weeks ago. However, the division bench argued that is a separate case and can’t have any bearing on the present case.
