HC asks Kunal Ghosh to appear in person on 16 June
The Statesman | 9 June 2025
The Calcutta High Court has served a show-cause notice in connection with a contempt of court case to Trinamul Congress leader Kunal Ghosh.
The notice has been handed over to Mr Ghosh through Narkeldanga police station.
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According to sources, the HC has asked Mr Ghosh to appear before its three-judge Bench on 16 June at 12.30 p.m. He has also been informed that he won’t be allowed to leave the court premises without the permission of the Bench.
Mr Ghosh told the media: “I have got the notice through the local police station. I have been asked to appear before the Bench on 16 June physically and not to leave the court premises without the permission of the court. I will appear before the Bench,” the Trinamul Congress leader said.
Claiming himself innocent, he said: “I didn’t do anything illegal and I was not there on the day of the incident. I will strictly follow everything the court has directed.”
On 19 May, a three-member Bench of the HC, comprising Justices Arijit Banerjee, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya and Rajarshi Bharadwaj issued contempt rules against Mr Ghosh and eight others in connection with an attack on lawyers on 25 April.
None of the accused in the case had appeared in person before the Bench, though Mr Ghosh was represented by his counsel.
On 25 April, senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya had filed a petition challenging the legality of the state cabinet’s decision to create supernumerary posts for school staff in 2021, which was accepted by Justice Biswajit Basu.
The same night, a section of the teachers, beneficiaries of the state cabinet’s decision, had allegedly attacked the chamber of Mr Bhattacharya and harassed him and his juniors, including Firdous Shamim and others.
After the Supreme Court dismissed the state government’s appeal in the cash-for-jobs scam in West School Service Commission’s state level recruitment test’s 2016 term, chief minister Mamata Banerjee had called for “political isolation” of Mr Bhattacharya, CPI-M MP in the Rajya Sabha, for having filed the court cases that exposed the corruption in the recruitment process.
A section of the lawyers had moved the Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam’s division Bench requesting for the court’s intervention.
Mr Ghosh had instigated the purported attackers at a news conference after Justice Basu’s order, the lawyers had alleged.