Former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee leaves after appearing before the Calcutta High Court to argue a case in Kolkata on May 14, 2026. Photo: PTI
Mamata returns to courtroom: Past cases when she donned lawyer's gown
After the May 4 poll debacle, TMC supremo pivots from the secretariat to the bar, something that she has done many times in the past
More than three months since appearing in the Supreme Court and 10 days after facing an electoral debacle in her den, West Bengal, the state’s former Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee on Thursday (May 14) was back at the Calcutta High Court as a lawyer.
The case relates to accusations of post-election violence in Bengal after the April Assembly elections. Mamata appeared before the chief justice of the court, Sujoy Paul.
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The lawsuit, filed by Shirshanya Bandopadhyay, the son of senior TMC MP and lawyer Kalyan Bandopadhyay, concerns accusations of assaults on political activists and party headquarters after the elections that saw the end of the TMC’s 15-year rule and the BJP coming to power in Bengal for the first time.
Mamata's past courtroom battles
♦ Appeared before the Supreme Court in February 2026 to challenge the SIR exercise in Bengal
♦ Argued in favour of Youth Congress members who were arrested following a protest over the murder of a school headmaster in Bengal's South Dinajpur district in 1984
♦ Fought for Congress workers who were arrested allegedly on false charges after protesting against the Left government of Bengal in Kolkata in July 1993
♦ Appeared for Youth Congress in Alipore court in Kolkata and the bereaved family of a person killed in police firing in Hooghly district in the 1990s
The 71-year-old firebrand leader, who caught all attention wearing a black lawyer’s gown, however, did not have a pleasant experience as a section of the lawyers targeted her with expletives after she came out. The TMC chief left the court premises, accusing that a section of the lawyers hit her.
While many saluted Mamata’s renewed stance after the political setback of May 4, many said she was doing it to be in the headlines after she and her party lost the Assembly elections.
However, the May 14 appearance in the court is not the first time the seasoned politician took up a courtroom battle.
Mamata appeared in SC in February
On February 4, Mamata, who was the chief minister of Bengal then, personally appeared before the Supreme Court to argue her own petition challenging the Special Intensive Revision of voter rolls in the state conducted by the Election Commission. The incident stole the limelight, and a bench led by the Chief Justice of India, Surya Kant, heard the petition.
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The leader, in fact, has appeared in various courts as a lawyer in more than two cases, when she was a member of the Congress, which she left to form the TMC in 1998.
Mamata, who was involved in student politics in her young days, received a degree in law from Jogesh Chandra Law College in Kolkata, affiliated to Calcutta University, in the early 1980s. In 1983, she was inducted into the Youth Congress, the youth wing of the Grand Old Party, and the next year, Mamata was seen donning the lawyer’s gown following the murder of a school headmaster in Kumarganj in Bengal’s South Dinajpur district.
It so happened that the Youth Congress protested the murder (the Congress was in opposition then against the ruling Left), and when many of their supporters were arrested, Mamata, who was in the thick of things to organise a movement, fought for their bail at a court in Balurghat in the same district. It was a successful outing for her as the court granted bail to the arrested Youth Congress members.
Fought for Congress workers in 1996
The leader’s next appearance in a court took place nearly a decade later. On July 21, 1993 — a date which remains significant in Bengal politics — Mamata was leading a protest held by the Youth Congress to the government secretariat in Kolkata, seeking mandatory photo Identity cards for voters in state elections as she often accused the then Left government of rigging polls. The protest turned violent as the police opened fire, resulting in the deaths of 13 people. Forty Youth Congress workers were also arrested, allegedly on false charges.
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Mamata, a Union minister of state then, appeared on behalf of the Congress workers before a chief judicial magistrate in Bankshall Court in Kolkata for their bail application. That was in 1996.
Other instances
There were also other instances in the 1990s when Mamata moved the court to seek relief for Youth Congress members, like in Alipore court in Kolkata or in Chinsurah in Hooghly district, after a local person was killed in police firing. Mamata argued in favour of the victim’s bereaved family a day after the incident.
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The TMC supremo’s supporters claimed that she has not forgotten her old habit of questioning on behalf of the common people. But the way Mamata was targeted on Thursday outside the high court, her critics argued that the times have changed, and it might not be easy for the former chief minister to find her lost touch easily.