As TMC leaders take on HC judge, ties between Bengal govt and judiciary take another hit

Ghosh also accused Justice Ganguly of “tarnishing Abhishek with the support of opposition parties Congress, CPI(M) and BJP”.

Earlier, Justice Ganguly, who ordered the CBI probe into alleged irregularities in the appointment of teachers and non-teaching staff to government schools of the state, leading to several TMC leaders’ arrests, had taken on Abhishek over his comments against the judiciary. Speaking to a local vernacular TV news channel ABP Ananda, he had said he was in favour of “strictest action” against anyone “who points a finger at the judiciary, otherwise people will lose faith in the justice system”. He said he favoured issuing a ruling against him and summoning him, but a division bench felt differently. If Abhishek couldn’t prove the charges he made against judges of acting at the behest of the BJP, the judge had said, “he should be jailed for three months for lying”. “Later, he may get me killed, but that doesn’t bother me.”

Then too, several TMC leaders had verbally attacked Justice Ganguly. TMC youth leader Debangshu Bhattacharya, known to be close to Abhishek, said in a Facebook “Live” that Justice Ganguly only appeared to take on the Congress and TMC. “On Mamata Banerjee you said you had heard that she has bouts of anger and takes revenge… How could you malign the image of an elected and popular Chief Minister?” Bhattacharya posted.

Mamata herself has often targeted the judiciary in the context of the school recruitment scam probe. At a recent programme, she spoke of people who had lost their jobs consequent to the probe and urged the judiciary “not to put their families in financial difficulties”, mentioning two suicides reportedly linked to the same. The CM was speaking at a programme at Alipore Judges’ Court.

On December 15 last year, Kunal Ghosh had launched a scathing attack on Justice Rajashekhar Mantha after he ordered that no FIR can be filed against the BJP’s Leader of Opposition (LoP), Suvendu Adhikari, without the High Court’s permission.

After that, posters criticising Justice Mantha over his recent verdicts came up outside his home in Kolkata’s Jodhpur Park. The posters called him a “disgrace to the judiciary”. In January, a group of lawyers had protested outside the chamber of Justice Mantha, while others had blocked the entrance to his bench, bringing its functioning to a standstill. The ruckus outside the court building had turned into a physical fight.

The incident had triggered a political blame game. BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya had tweeted: “The TMC wants a committed judiciary… Lawyers aligned to the TMC blocking his (Justice Mantha’s) courtroom, requiring the CJ’s (Chief Justice’s) intervention, who has now sought CCTV footage.”

TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh had then said, “We, the TMC, have the highest regard for the judiciary and the judges. Without knowing who has done this and what is the purpose behind it, it would be not right to comment. We are not the CPI(M) that had once said ‘Bicharpoti Lala, Bangla chere pala’ (Justice Lala, run away from Bengal).” He was referring to the slogan given by tyene Left Front chairman Biman Bose in 2003, against late Justice Amitava Lala of the Calcutta High Court, who had observed in court that political rallies should be banned on Kolkata streets on working days, after getting stuck in traffic while coming to work due to a rally taken out by the then ruling Left Front.

A senior TMC leader expressed discomfort within the party over these direct attacks on the judiciary. “It is true that in the last year, every judicial order has gone against us. But that does not mean we attack the judiciary. It is tarnishing our image.”