New Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday took strong exception to a sitting judge of the Calcutta High Court giving an interview to a news channel in September last year and speaking on a case being heard by him. A judge in office, the top court said, has no “business speaking with the media” on a matter that he/she is seized of.
A bench led by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud asked the high court registrar general to personally verify with the judge concerned about the interview, and asked the officer to file an affidavit before the Supreme Court by Friday.
“We want to know if the learned judge has taken part in the interview. This is something on a TV video and it cannot be possibly misinterpreted,” noted the bench, also comprising Justice P.S. Narasimha. “Something said in the court cannot be gone into, but TV interviews…”
The judge in question is Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who was interviewed by a prominent Bengali TV news channel.
The judge has been in the limelight for drawing public attention on the alleged school-jobs-for-bribes scam. Before he gave the interview, he had ordered a CBI probe into the alleged illegal appointment of non-teaching (Group C and D) and teaching staff by the West Bengal Central School Service Commission and West Bengal Board of Secondary Education.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) also launched a parallel probe in the matter and arrested former education minister Partha Chatterjee in July last year.
On 13 April this year, the judge’s bench had asked the CBI and the ED to bring Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew — MP Abhishek Banerjee — under the ambit of their investigation in the case.
Challenging this order, Abhishek Banerjee approached the top court, which last week restrained the two agencies from interrogating him. In his appeal against Justice Gangopadhyay’s order allowing his questioning, Banerjee questioned his interview to the TV channel.
‘Some process’ has to be followed
At the last hearing, Banerjee’s lawyer, senior advocate A.M. Singhvi, objected to the contents of the interview to a newspaper (of the same company as the channel), and said that it was yet to be retracted. The CJI, however, had responded that “judges don’t go around contradicting something which has appeared in the print”.
But Monday, the bench held another view when it was informed that the interview was by a sitting judge, one who is hearing the case. Singhvi said that it was unprecedented, and that it was not a purported interview, but an actual one.
Singhvi also took the judges through the transcript of the interview, which has been annexed to the petition. He said since the judge had made observations against Banerjee in his interview, he should not hear the matter.
When additional solicitor general S.V. Raju attempted to intervene, the bench told him that it was not touching the “investigation into the scam” or “passing any order which will preclude a proper probe”.
“The question is whether a judge, who has given an interview on a political personality like this, should be allowed to hear the matter or should we ask the chief justice to let some other judge hear it,” the CJI said.
He further clarified the reason for the bench to interfere, saying “some process” has to be followed in hearing cases. The bench will now take up the case 28 April.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
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