The leader of the Trinamool Congress, Abhishek Banerjee, has petitioned the Supreme Court to have issues involving him handled by benches including Justices Abhijit Gangopadhyay and Amrita Sinha instead of the Calcutta High Court. The suo motu case that the Supreme Court had previously started against Justice Gangopadhyay’s rulings in the false caste certificate fraud was referenced in Banerjee’s appeal by a bench consisting of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud, Justices Manoj Misra, and Satish Chandra Sharma.
Cases pertaining to the cash for school employment scheme are presently being heard by Justice Sinha, who took over the cases from Justice Gangopadhyay. In today’s brief hearing, the CJI stated that it would not be appropriate to give notice in this case. “However, in this manner, can we receive a case from Justice Amrita Sinha? We’ll mark this petition with the cases that we’ve taken on from the bench of Justice Gangopadhyay. We’ll tag and listen to this, then. How can we investigate other cases when you say to look into utterances that are driven by politics?” the CJI questioned.
Senior Attorney Abhishek Manu Singhvi, speaking on behalf of Banerjee, said today: “Judge Gangopadhyay states that Justice Soumen Sen spoke with Justice Amrita Sinha on my case. This requires examination. The judge, Gangopadhyay, participated in three interviews. The learned judge claims that Justice Soumen Sen discussed my case with Justice Sinha. The Supreme Court strongly objected to Justice Gangopadhyay’s interview with a TV channel in April of last year.
Even as the judge was hearing a case involving the politician, Justice Gangopadhyay had levelled accusations against Banerjee in that interview. At that time, the Supreme Court made the observation that it was improper for sitting justices to speak with television networks. The Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court was then instructed by the CJI to transfer the aforementioned case to a different bench.
Judge Gangopadhyay suo motu issued an order shortly after the top court’s directive, requiring the Supreme Court Secretary General to present the report and official translation of the interview he had with the Bengali media. This suo motu order required the Supreme Court to convene a special late-night session in order for it to remain unchanged. A division bench of Justices Hima Kohli and AS Bopanna further noted that the ruling in question was “in violation of judicial discipline.”
Judge Gangopadhyay has accused Justice Soumen Sen, a fellow judge, of “clearly acting for some political party in West Bengal” in more recent times. Additionally, the one-judge had urged the Supreme Court to investigate Justice Sen’s orders in cases affecting the state. This had to do with a West Bengal caste certificate scam.
Judge Sen led the division bench that wisely postponed Justice Gangopadhyay’s order to launch an investigation into the scam by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Even so, Justice Gangopadhyay reopened the case for hearing and ultimately issued a ruling that questioned how Justice Sen’s division bench could overrule his first directive for a CBI investigation. Judge Gangopadhyay requested in the aforementioned judgement that the CBI “ignore” the division bench’s ruling because it was made in an “illegally filed appeal.”
The judge continued by asserting that, because Abhishek Banerjee has a “good political future,” Justice Sen had “instructed” Justice Amrita Sinha to dismiss cases brought against the leader of the Trinamool Congress. Following that, the Supreme Court was compelled to transfer all of the proceedings in the fictitious certificate case to the Calcutta High Court and take suo motu notice of the occurrences there.
