Day after judge accused fellow judge, SC stays all proceedings before Calcutta HC on the matter

On Saturday, issuing notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the petitioner on whose plea Justice Gangopadhyay directed the CBI probe, and the state of West Bengal, a five-judge Supreme Court bench, in a special sitting, stayed all further proceedings before the single judge bench and the division bench, and directed an interim stay of the single-judge order.

“Issue notice to the original petitioner before the High Court in repetition and the state of West Bengal… Pending further orders there shall be a stay of all proceedings before the High Court of Calcutta in writ petitions… The implementation of the direction issued by the single judge on January 24 and 25 shall in consequence remain stayed,” the bench presided by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, Surya Kant and Aniruddha Bose said in its order.

The Supreme Court had taken suo motu cognisance of the issue after the controversy became public.

On January 24, the single-judge bench of Justice Gangopadhyay had ordered a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in the admission of MBBS candidates in state-run medical colleges and hospitals in West Bengal. However, the state government moved the division bench of Justices Sen and Uday Kumar, which ordered an interim stay on the single-bench order. The state government had made a verbal appeal before the division bench, which admitted the petition.

A day later, Justice Gangopadhyay directed that the CBI probe in the matter shall continue. He also said in the order that he “was told” by another judge, Justice Amrita Sinha, “some days back… that Justice Sen called her in his 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 Sinha’s court; iii) The two writ petitions before Justice Sinha, where the name of Mr. Avishek Banerjee is involved, are to be dismissed”.

“Justice Sinha intimated this to me over telephone in vacation. Subsequently, Justice Sinha reported it to the Hon’ble 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,” he added in the order.

On Saturday, Attorney General (AG) R Venkataramani as well as Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta raised the issue of procedural propriety of the High Court division bench intervening in the matter on oral mentioning.

SG Mehta said he was not talking about the validity or legality of the orders, but was “more concerned about the procedure of passing an interim order without either appeal, memo or impugned order before the division bench, which in case of this very High Court, this court exercising powers under Article 141 prohibited”. He also referred to the 1984 ruling in which the Supreme Court had deprecated the practice of Calcutta High Court acting on oral requests.

CJI Chandrachud said, “We are not deciding anything right now. We will reserve everything later. We don’t want to make a prima facie determination at this stage. We will see when the matter comes up before us. Sometimes, there are exceptional circumstances…”

SG Mehta added, “Yes, in principle, sometimes like in hanging or demolition, it cannot wait.”

Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the state of West Bengal, said, “I don’t want to respond to that… We should wait till Monday (when the SC will hear it again).” He added that the “single judge passing orders is also a matter of concern”.

Sibal said the state government is filing an appeal against the single bench’s order.

Senior Advocate A M Singhvi, appearing for Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee, said he has filed a writ petition. “The person who is gratuitously mentioned in every order unrelated to him is me. So I must be there,” he said.

Adjourning the hearing, the CJI said, “We will take charge now.”