New Delhi: Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the Calcutta High Court ordered a CBI probe in the alleged fake caste certificate scam without any such prayer being made by the petitioner on whose PIL the directions were issued, the West Bengal government has claimed before the Supreme Court.
In an appeal challenging three controversial orders of Justice Gangopadhyay — which he gave between 24 and 25 January — the state government has questioned the CBI probe on the ground that it was given by the judge on his own, in the absence of any plea asking for it.
The state also complained against the judge for not uploading his order on time to enable the state to file a proper appeal before the division bench.
Moreover, the state said, this was not the first case which the judge had transferred from the state police to a central agency. From 2022 onwards, the appeal submitted, the judge had transferred investigations from the state police to CBI, and also an Enforcement Directorate probe.
The Calcutta High Court witnessed a clash between two judges on 24 and 25 January, which caused the Supreme Court to step in on Monday.
Soon after Justice Gangopadhyay on 24 January ordered a CBI probe into the alleged fake caste certificate scam, a division bench led by Justice Soumen Sen on the same day stayed the direction. This was done on an oral mention by West Bengal’s Advocate General. There was, however, no formal written appeal filed before the division bench.
Hours later on the same day, Justice Gangopadhyay passed another order, directing the state police to hand over the case documents to the CBI.
On yet another oral mention by the state, Justice Sen’s bench on 25 January quashed the CBI case registered in the matter. Promptly, Justice Gangopadhyay scheduled a hearing in his court and reiterated his order directing a CBI probe into the fake caste certificate case. In this order, Justice Gangopadhyay also argued against Justice Sen’s move.
He even questioned Justice Soumen Sen’s continuation as a judge in the Calcutta HC, wondering why he was still there despite the top court collegium recommending his transfer to another high court. He also accused Justice Sen of acting “for some political party in the state”.
‘Vitiated judicial process,’ says Centre
The Centre has questioned the division bench’s order, which had directed a stay on Justice Gangopadhyay’s directions for a CBI probe.
A brief note submitted on behalf of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the division bench’s decision to stay the single judge’s directions without a formal appeal “may have vitiated the judicial process”.
Taking exception to the manner in which the division bench stayed Justice Gangopadhyay’s order, the Centre said in its submission that the circumstances (in which the division bench issued its order) “portray a reasonable likelihood of the streams of justice being polluted not only to the eyes of common man, but also to men of law”.
Top court steps in
The West Bengal government’s appeal and Mehta’s written note were filed a day after the five-judge bench of the top court, in a special sitting on 27 January, stayed all proceedings related to the fake caste certificate scam, thereby restraining both Justice Gangopadhyay and Justice Sen’s bench from hearing the matter.
On 29 January, the same bench transferred to itself all petitions relating to the alleged irregularities in issuing caste certificates pending before the high court.
What the state said
“The Ld. Single Judge has erroneously directed the CBI to take over the documents from the State Police and register a FIR, solely considering the fact that the state police had failed to arrest an accused in a completely different investigation, which was not even the subject matter of the petition before it, thus the said order was clearly misconceived and baseless,” read the West Bengal government’s appeal, filed through the state’s standing counsel, Astha Sharma.
Insinuations made in Justice Gangopadhya’s order, the appeal said, aimed “at bringing the administration of justice” in the state into “disrepute”. This tends to shake public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary too, it added.
Justice Gangopadhyay’s order came on a public interest litigation filed by one of the students of NEET alleging illegality in allotment of seats earmarked for Scheduled Tribe Candidates in government colleges, which the state said, neither pleaded for a CBI probe nor contained material for the high court to order it.
The petitioner in the case, the state said, never placed any “cogent material on record” to indicate that the state police investigation would not yield effective results nor “cast any aspersions” on the conduct of the local police machinery.
The appeal narrated the sequence of events that transpired on 24 and 25 January before the two different benches to show how the single bench of Justice Gangopadhyay curtailed the state from approaching the senior court in appeal against his order of a CBI probe.
While issuing his first order on 24 January morning, Justice Gangopadhyay fixed the matter for further hearing on 25 January. However, as mentioned in the state government’s appeal, he heard the matter again on 24 January at 2.30 pm for the purposes of handing over the documents from state police to the CBI.
Justice Gangopadhyay directed a CBI official to be present during the afternoon hearing. But the judge did not upload his order on the CBI probe on the same day. This technically sought to “curtail the right of the petitioner (state) in approaching the appellate court (division bench), in time to seek interim orders,” leaving it with no other option but to orally mention it through the senior most law officer, the state contended.
On the other hand, the Centre in its written submissions advocated transferring the proceedings in the case out of West Bengal. If this was not done, the Centre cautioned, the same would result in a “serious damage” to “perception of justice, especially the applicability of ‘rule of law’”.
“There, cannot be any doubt that incidents and the allegations in the present case and others have affected the administration of justice and brought the entire institution and its functioning under question,” the submissions mentioned.
At the same time, hearing of the appeal (by the division bench) without a copy of the order under challenge, without any “seeming urgency” cannot be considered to be correct, it said.
It referred to Section 82 of the CrPC according to which “every appeal shall be made in the form of a petition in writing presented by the appellant or his pleader, and every such petition shall (unless the Court to which it is presented otherwise directs) be accompanied by a copy of the judgment or order appealed against.”
(Edited by Tikli Basu)