The order was issued in a suo motu case by a bench that included Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud, Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, Surya Kant, and Aniruddha Bose.
The suo motu case was started when the Calcutta High Court’s Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay issued an odd directive to “ignore” a stay order issued by a division bench led by Justice Soumen Sen.
The Supreme Court refrained from commenting today about the alleged altercation between Justices Gangopadhyay and Sen, expressing concerns that doing so might compromise the decorum of the High Court’s proceedings.
It would not be appropriate to heap criticism on a single judge or division bench. Anything we say will have the effect of undermining the high court’s dignity. We’ll deal with it somehow, Chief Justice Chandrachud declared.
Nonetheless, the highest court said that the Supreme Court will now handle the matter that started the contentious proceedings in the High Court.
“We will send the writ petition and letters patent appeal processes to the Supreme Court. After some time, we will list it and take care of it. This court will hear the appeal under Article 226 and the letters patent. Let the pleadings conclude in the interim,” the Supreme Court declared.
A number of senior attorneys brought up incidental issues in front of the Supreme Court bench today.
“Justice Gangopadhyay is continuing to take such matters.. He will continue doing the same thing,” responded Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal who appeared on behalf of State of West Bengal.
Tushar Mehta, the solicitor general, made a suggestion that there were some “shocking facts” involved.
Senior Counsel KTS Tulsi made an appearance on behalf of students who are belonging to Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes.
But today, the Supreme Court limited the hearing to just transferring the High Court proceedings to itself, declining to comment on the rivalry among the High Court judges.
“There is a Chief justice of the High Court who is allocating cases. Let us not arrogate his powers,” the CJI added.
The High Court received a petition alleging that fake caste certificates were issued in West Bengal, which is where the issue stemmed from.
It was initially brought before Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who, despite the fact that the petition contained no such prayer, ordered a CBI investigation.
The same day, a division bench consisting of Justices Soumen Sen and Uday Kumar stayed the judge’s single order.
Nevertheless, Justice Gangopadhyay allowed the case papers to be turned over to the CBI that same afternoon, noting that the State attorney had not been informed of the division bench’s stay order.
Moreover, Justice Gangopadhyay issued another order on January 25, the very next day, stating that the division bench ruling should be disregarded. The said order also contained several diatribes against Justice Sen who was accused of being an “interested party.”
In the order, he claimed that Justice Sen had recently summoned Justice Amrita Sinha, a different judge from the Calcutta High Court, to his chambers and informed her that judge orders should not interfere with Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee’s political future.
On January 25, Justice Sen issued a second order that criticized the ruling made by Justice Gangopadhyay and mandated that the CBI return the case files to the State.
On Saturday, January 27, the Supreme Court took notice of the disagreement and halted the High Court’s single-judge and division bench proceedings.
Additionally, the court stayed Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay’s, a single judge, order for the CBI investigation.
In connection with this, Justice Gangopadhyay has experienced controversy before.
In April of last year, the Supreme Court had strongly objected to him speaking to a news channel about Banerjee while the judge was hearing a case involving the politician.
Shortly afterward, during an extraordinary late-night session, the highest court was forced to set aside a directive issued by Justice Gangopadhyay, which required its Secretary-General to submit the report pertaining to the aforementioned interview.