Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the Calcutta High Court Thursday directed that a CBI investigation into alleged irregularities in MBBS admission in medical college hospitals in Bengal will continue despite an order of a division bench to the contrary. In the written order, he levelled accusations against a fellow judge, Justice Soumen Sen.
When contacted, Justice Sen declined to comment.
Justice Gangopadhyay had Wednesday ordered a CBI probe into the alleged irregularities in the admission of MBBS candidates in state-run medical college and hospitals. However, the state government moved the division bench of Justice Sen, which ordered an interim stay on the single bench order. The state government had made a verbal appeal before that division bench, which admitted the petition.
Late Thursday evening, Calcutta High Court Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam prepared a new roster for the judges. According to the new roster, the division bench headed by Justice Sen will no longer hear recruitment-related cases and the same will now be heard by the division bench headed by Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty. The division bench headed by Justice Sen will now hear cases which were till now been heard by Justice Chakraborty.
In his written order, Justice Gangopadhyay wrote, “Now I have to do something which is though unusual but unless I do this, I think I will fail in my duty to hold the sanctity of judiciary in general and this court in particular. It is fully in respect of His Lordship, the Hon’ble Justice Soumen Sen,” the order reads.
“I was told some days back by Justice Amrita Sinha that Justice Soumen Sen called her in Justice Sen’s chamber on the last day before vacation and like a political leader, he dictated Justice Sinha three things: i) Mr. Avishek Banerjee has a political future, he should not be disturbed; ii) Live-streaming shall be stopped in Justice Amrita Sinha’s court; iii) The two writ petitions before Justice Amrita Sinha, where the name of Mr Avishek Banerjee is involved, are to be dismissed,” the order reads.
“Justice Sinha intimated this to me over telephone in vacation. Subsequently, Justice Sinha reported it to the Hon’ble the Chief Justice of this High Court and I was told that the Hon’ble Chief Justice of this court has communicated this to the Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India,” the order reads.
“Thus, Justice Sen is acting clearly for some political party in this State and, therefore, the orders passed in the matters involving State, are required to be relooked if the Hon’ble Supreme Court thinks so.” the order states.
“Today I am told by the Learned Advocates that Justice Sen has quashed the FIR already lodged by CBI and called the Registrar General (Acting), who was Registrar in charge yesterday, to know how the order of the Single Bench, despite stay order passed by the Division Bench, was communicated to CBI. In my order there was a clear direction in this regard,” the order states.
“What Justice Sen has done today is to advance the cause of his personal interest to save some political party in power in this State. Therefore, his actions clearly tantamount to misconduct,” the order states.
Since 2022, Justice Gangopadhyay has ordered CBI probes in teacher recruitment scams and alleged irregularities in the recruitment process in the state. The investigations led to the arrest of former Minister Partha Chatterjee, senior officials, and recovery and seizure of movable and immovable property worth over Rs 100 crore.
On September 20, 2022, Justice Gangopadhyay gave an interview to a Bengali television news channel where he criticised the state government and also the Trinamool Congress. In the interview, he said that Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee should be jailed for three months for alleging that a section of the judiciary was hand in glove with the BJP.
After the interview, the Supreme Court asked the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court to reassign central cases in school jobs scam from Justice Gangopadhyay to another judge. SC also observed that Judges cannot give interviews on pending cases. On November 26, 2022, the Trinamool Congress lashed out at Gangopadhyay after he observed that he might have to ask the Election Commission of India (ECI) to cancel the recognition of Trinamool Congress as a political party and withdraw its logo.