On case being taken away, Cal HC judge asks SC for record by midnight; SC stays his order, questions discipline

Yesterday, hours after the Supreme Court had withdrawn the teacher recruitment scam petitions from Justice Gangopadhyay for speaking to the media about how he would rule in the case, Justice Gangopadhyay had passed a suo motu order directing the Supreme Court Secretary General to send to him the translation of the interview relied on by the Supreme Court. Later in the evening, the Supreme Court stayed this order, questioning the high court judge's judicial discipline.

—–

YESTERDAY saw an unprecedented back-and-forth between the Supreme Court and Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay that had the potential to turn into an ugly crisis but thankfully did not when the latter seemed to concede the matter and seemingly take the high road.

Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court Bench of  Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dr D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice P.S. Narasimha had withdrawn petitions concerning the alleged teacher recruitment scam in West Bengal from Justice  Gangopadhyay for giving an interview to the media last year in which he had expressed displeasure at certain comments made about the judiciary by All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) National General Secretary and Parliamentarian Abhishek Banerjee, and warned that he would rule against Banerjee in relation to the scam.

Hours after this order, Justice Gangopadhyay passed a suo motu order directing the Secretary General of the Supreme Court to produce before him the official translation of the interview given by him which was sent to the Supreme Court by the Registrar General of the high court and relied upon by the Supreme Court for its ruling.

In his order, Justice Gangopadhyay directed the Secretary General of the Supreme Court to comply with his order by 12 midnight today, and that he would be waiting in his chamber till 12:15 a.m. to get the original copies of the documents placed before the Supreme Court.

Later in the evening at around 8 p.m., though, a division Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices A.S. Bopanna and Hima Kohli stayed the order by Justice Gangopadhyay. In its order, the Bench opined that such an order "ought not to have been passed in a judicial proceeding, more so keeping in view the judicial discipline expected to be maintained."

Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, who appeared before the Bench, had pointed out the same to the court.

The Bench had directed the Secretary General of the Supreme Court to communicate a copy of its order to Justice Gangopadhyay through the Registrar General of the Calcutta High Court.

At around 9:30 p.m., Justice Gangopadhyay chose to address the press and stated that he accepted the decision of the Supreme Court. He appeared calm and demur.

When asked if he was feeling down, he specifically denied the same, stating that his mood was not bad. He also said, somewhat cryptically, that, "I guess other matters may also be taken away from me." While emphasising to the press that there was nothing 'personal' involved in the matter, he firmly stated that he would neither run away nor shy down from continuing his fight against "durneeti" (that is, 'bad policy').

Background

Yesterday morning, the Supreme Court division Bench of CJI Dr Chandrachud and Justice Narasimha withdrew from Justice Gangopadhyay all petitions concerning the teacher recruitment scam at both the West Bengal Central School Service Commission and the West Bengal Board of Primary Education. The Bench requested the Acting Chief Justice of the high court to assign the matter to another judge of the high court.

It clarified that the parties would be at liberty to file appropriate applications before the judge to be assigned by the Acting Chief Justice.

On April 24, the Bench had directed the Registrar General of the high court to personally verify from Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay whether he had given the interview on the subject matter pending before him. It had also observed that a judge had no business giving interviews to the media on matters pending before them.

The Bench was hearing a special leave petition filed by Banerjee against the order passed by Justice Gangopadhyay on April 13 directing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) to investigate Banerjee in relation to the scam.

Justice Gangopadhyay had also directed that no police station would lodge any first information report pertaining to any complaint made to it in respect of any officer of the CBI or the ED who are investigating the said scam.

Justice Gangopadhyay acted against Banerjee after the latter delivered a speech on March 29 wherein, he urged some persons to support him by saying that when those persons were in custody, the police or the interrogating agencies pressured them to implicate him, as per the order dated April 13. After the speech by Banerjee, TMC leader Kuntal Ghosh, who is an accused in the alleged scam, made a complaint to the CBI and the Hastings Police Station that the investigating agencies were trying to force him to name Banerjee.

Justice Gangopadhyay found proximity between the speech delivered by Banerjee and the complaint made by Ghosh.

"This matching tune raises a serious doubt in my mind as to a tacit understanding between them as when this Kuntal was selling school teachers job both Kuntal and Abhishek were in the same political party," Justice Gangopadhyay had observed. He had thus directed that no effect shall be given to the complaint made by Ghosh.

On April 17, the Supreme Court stayed the action against Banerjee in pursuance of the directions issued by Justice Gangopadhyay. On Monday, the Bench led by CJI Dr Chandrachud expressed its displeasure at Justice Gangopadhyay speaking to the media on a matter being heard by him.

In his interview, Justice Gangopadhyay had said that he wanted to take action against Banerjee for making comments against the judiciary.

"[Banerjee] once commented on the judiciary. I was not in Kolkata then. I was in Ladakh. Sitting there, I thought I will issue a rule against him. I will summon him. I will take action after that. But back in Kolkata, I found that a petition was filed in the division Bench in this regard. The division Bench did not consider the issue. They thought he would get extra importance. But, I have a different opinion," Justice Gangopadhyay had said in the interview in September last year, according to the Indian Express.

(We are grateful to Imtiaz Akhtar, advocate at the Calcutta High Court and joint editor of the Calcutta Law Journal for covering for us Justice Gangopadhyay's press interaction last night.)