Kolkata: Celebrated as a “crusader against corruption” by his supporters and criticized for overstepping his brief by detractors, Calcutta High Court judge Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay has found himself at the centre of a legal showdown with the Supreme Court following his controversial TV interview about West Bengal’s School Service Recruitment (SSC) case.
Several leaders of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), including former education minister Partha Chatterjee, have been implicated in this high-profile case.
In the first of a dramatic series of events Friday, Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud ordered acting Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court T.S. Sivagnanam to reassign the case — involving alleged irregularities in the appointments of staff in West Bengal government-run schools — from Justice Gangopadhyay’s bench.
The same day, a separate top court bench also stayed Justice Gangopadhyay’s order asking the SC secretary general to present to him the translation of the interview’s transcript that was placed before the CJI.
The top court orders came in the wake of a petition filed by Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee — the nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee — arguing that Justice Gangopadhyay made statements against him in an interview last September to Bengagli TV news channel ABP Ananda. Last week, the top court also noted that the judge had “no business” speaking to the media about the case.
Prior to the said interview, Justice Gangopadhyay had ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the alleged illegal appointment of non-teaching and teaching staff by the West Bengal Central School Service Commission (SSC) and the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education. Then, on April 13, he asked the CBI to bring Abhishek under the ambit of investigation in the case.
This Monday, Justice Sivagnanam reportedly asked Justice Gangopadhyay to return the files related to two cases against Abhishek in the SSC case.
While the Trinamool Congress has celebrated the Supreme Court’s actions, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has called it “unfortunate”.
As he left the premises of the Calcutta High Court late Friday night, Justice Gangopadhyay told mediapersons that he had seen the Supreme Court’s order, but did not intend to back down. “I am waiting for legal advice. But I have a feeling, like today, all the corruption cases will be moved away from my bench. I will not step down, I won’t run away,” he declared.
Legal experts, meanwhile, are divided over the turn of events.
Retired SC judge Ashok Ganguly told ThePrint that the judge should not have given an interview on a sub-judice matter. However, he also noted that the Supreme Court cannot decide which judge will hear a particular matter in a high court.
“High Courts are not subordinate to the Supreme Court. There are no provisions under the Constitution where the SC can direct the HC to assign a different judge. It’s only the concerned Chief Justice who can decide,” Ganguly said.
Nevertheless, he added that there are “certain unwritten rules” and that Justice Gangopadhyay “shouldn’t have given an interview about a matter he himself is hearing”.
A senior judicial official in the Calcutta High Court said that there was nothing wrong if a judge wanted to access the transcript of his interview placed before the Supreme Court. “All he wanted was a copy,” the judicial official told ThePrint.
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‘An honest judge with a spine’
Known for his strong stance against corruption, Justice Gangopadhyay is often described as a “people’s judge” and has something of a fan following in West Bengal.
For instance, during the Kolkata International Book Fair in January, a large crowd gathered around him while he browsed a bookstall. Some asked for selfies, others requested handshakes, and one admirer even called him a “god” for exposing the alleged corruption of the state’s ruling party.
A graduate of Kolkata’s Hazra Law College, Justice Gangopadhyay was appointed as an additional judge of the Calcutta High Court in 2018. Two years later, he was posted as a permanent judge.
Kolkata-based advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, who is also a CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP, told ThePrint that Justice Gangopadhyay had always stood up against corruption.
“When a person truly dislikes corruption, the slightest cases can be a trigger. Justice Gangopadhyay is an honest judge with a spine,” said Bhattacharya, who is representing the aggrieved job aspirants.
Last year, Justice Gangopadhyay ordered a CBI probe into the alleged SSC scam, in which government teaching jobs were purportedly being traded for cash. It was this order that led to the arrest of former education minister and Trinamool leader Partha Chatterjee.
Subsequently, two other MLAs and various Trinamool Congress functionaries were arrested for allegedly taking bribes. Several officials who were at the helm of the Education Board are also in prison.
But this isn’t the first time that Justice Gangopadhyay has made headlines in this matter.
In March 2022, he wrote to the CJI and sought its intervention after an HC division bench stayed his order seeking a CBI probe in the alleged scam. Eventually, five judges recused themselves from hearing the matter.
Then last August, while hearing the SSC case, he became the first judge of the Calcutta High Court to allow the media to record court proceedings on camera, leading to an outcry from some lawyers, one of whom accused him of turning the courtroom into a “bazaar”.
In September, five months after ordering a CBI probe into the alleged SSC scam, Justice Gangopadhyay gave his controversial interview to ABP Ananda.
The same day, a PIL was filed before the Calcutta High Court to stop the broadcast, but then Calcutta HC Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava dismissed the petition. While doing so he had noted that he had “full faith” that the court’s judges would make statements only in keeping with the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct — an internationally recognised set of ethical guidelines for judges’ professional conduct.
Meanwhile, Sangeeta Sharma, an aspiring teacher who says she qualified for a job but was illegally denied, told ThePrint that she was grateful to Justice Gangopadhyay.
“If it wasn’t for Justice Gangopadhyay, the corrupt politicians wouldn’t have been unmasked. He helped the poor get the jobs they deserve and removed those who cheated and forged answer scripts to get a post illegally. Our fight is not over,” she said.
Mixed reactions
Justice Gangopadhyay has not pulled punches in his observations about the Trinamool Congress, and has even rebuked the CBI on occasion.
Last November, for instance, he said he might advise the Election Commission to cancel Trinamool’s party status and withdraw its logo. This observation came after the education secretary informed his court that the West Bengal Cabinet decided to create additional teachers’ posts to “accommodate” those who were illegally appointed.
Then this February, Justice Gangopadhyay reportedly said he would “complain” to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the pace of the CBI’s probe. “What is CBI doing for the last 10 months?” he had asked.
The SC’s order has invited mixed reactions from political parties in Bengal.
Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee said the party “welcomed” the court’s action.
“Be it the Supreme Court, or any other court, we have utmost respect and trust our judicial system. Since the matter is sub-judice, I would not like to comment on this, although I myself was the petitioner in this case,” Abhishek told a public rally in Jalpaiguri Friday.
“We believe that in the coming days, people will get timely justice. If anyone from the Trinamool Congress is found guilty, there must be a thorough probe and the guilty should be punished accordingly,” he added.
The opposition parties, however, have said they find the order regrettable. “The people will forever remember the fight against corruption led by crusader Justice Gangopadhyay. We cannot speak against the Supreme Court of India but this order is very unfortunate,” West Bengal BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar said Friday.
Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury also described Justice Gangopadhyay as a “crusader”.
“Justice Gangopadhyay has proven himself as the crusader against corruption,” the Leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha told the media Friday. “He has been a blessing for several of those who had been denied a job in order to fill (politicians’) pockets.”
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
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