Caste certificate scam: SC takes over case after ugly judicial flare-up in West Bengal
Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay accused judge Soumen Sen of pandering to the interests of the ruling TMC to overrule his order for a CBI probe
The Supreme Court on Saturday took over a case of alleged irregularities in caste certificates in West Bengal after an ugly tussle between two benches of the Calcutta High Court.
A five-judge bench of the apex court chaired by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud sat on a holiday after a defiant judge overruled an order of a division bench that quashed his order for a CBI probe.
The Supreme Court said it was taking "charge" of the case and stayed all proceedings in West Bengal. Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay had accused judge Soumen Sen of the division bench of pandering to the interests of West Bengal's ruling TMC to overrule his order for an investigation by the CBI.
Stay on proceedings
"We will stay further proceedings. We are issuing notice to the State of West Bengal and the original petitioner before the HC. We will list the proceeding on Monday again,” the apex court said.
“We will stay all further proceedings in the writ petition and the Letters Patent Appeal and the implementation of the single bench order referring the investigation to CBI," it said.
The other judges in the Supreme Court bench were Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, Surya Kant and Aniruddha Bose.
Allows govt to file SLP
The top court also allowed the West Bengal government to file separately a Special Leave Petition (SLP) against Justice Gangopadhyay's order for a CBI probe into the alleged irregularities.
Justice Gangopadhyay had overruled the decision of a division bench of Justices Soumen Sen and Uday Kumar Ganguly which had quashed his order of registering a FIR in the case.
On Saturday, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the West Bengal government, said the state intended to file an appeal against Justice Gangopadhyay's order for a CBI probe.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI, said order of the division bench lacked jurisdiction as it stayed Justice Gangopadhyay's order without even an appeal memo having been filed.
‘No faith in state police’
Justice Gangopadhyay had on Thursday held that the order passed by Justices Soumen Sen and Uday Kumar Ganguly was wholly illegal and needed to be ignored. He asked the CBI to go ahead with the probe.
He had on Wednesday told the CBI to launch an investigation, saying he had no faith in the state police. He passed the order on a plea by MBBS aspirant Itisha Soren alleging irregularities in the admission process for candidates belonging to the reserved categories.
Serious charge
The West Bengal government rushed to the division bench on Thursday. A defiant Justice Gangopadhyay took up the matter the same day and asked the Advocate General how a stay order could be passed without a memo of appeal and the impugned order in place.
He said: "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."
Bid to save political party?
He also alleged what Justice Sen had done was to advance the cause of his personal interest to save some political party in power. Therefore, his actions clearly tantamount to misconduct, he said.
"I do not know how a judge, being Justice Soumen Sen, who is under an order of transfer for last more than two years, is acting here as a judge defying the Supreme Court Collegium's recommendation (of September 16, 2021) from this court to the Odisha High Court.”
"Who are the persons behind him, who are saving him from such transfer whereby the order of the Supreme Court Collegium can be ignored while the other Hon'ble judges have been transferred by the same recommendation?" Justice Gangopadhyay wrote in his order.
(With agency inputs)
