The Supreme Court stayed an unusual order made by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the Calcutta High Court earlier today, ordering the secretary general of the high court to give him the translation of a contentious media interview that was presented before a bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud in the morning. The unusual order was made during a special sitting held at 8 p.m. today.
The Supreme Court ordered that the case involving the West Bengal primary teachers’ recruitment fraud be moved from Justice Gangopadhyay’s bench earlier today after taking issue with his television interview on the sub-judice subject that was before him. After that, Justice Gangopadhyay issued an order suo motu this evening ordering the Supreme Court’s Secretary General to present him with the translation of the interview that was posted online.
A special meeting of a bench made up of Justices AS Bopanna and Hima Kohli was called at 8 PM today in light of this unprecedented event.
Justice AS Bopanna orally stated, “Pursuant to the earlier order passed today earlier, the learned judge passed an order on the judicial side which was not proper.”
“The erudite judge shouldn’t have made the ruling. It may be postponed, the bench and SG agreed.
The bench noted in the judgement stopping it that “the order of the present nature ought not to have been passed in a judicial proceeding, more so considering judicial discipline, as rightly pointed out by the learned Solicitor General.” The bench instructed the secretary general of the court to inform the registrar general of the Calcutta High Court immediately of the stay order so that the judge would be informed.
The Calcutta High Court is now hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) lawsuit claiming irregularities, illegalities, and corruption in the selection of assistant teachers for the state’s primary schools using the results of the 2014 Teacher Eligibility Test. Today, a bench made up of Chief Justice Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha agreed to order the acting chief justice of the high court to reassign the case after earlier this year’s top court declined to hear a petition from the West Bengal government challenging the maintainability of the high court’s argument. This judgement was made in light of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, the presiding judge, speaking to the media; a transcript of the interview was presented to the court.
Notably, the top justice also said in an oral statement: “Judges take on an extremely onerous responsibility. There is no other reason why we are requesting that the case be reassigned; it is just because of the transcript. They cannot claim that the judge was biassed in public.You are correct; judges shouldn’t be threatened. If I encounter it in my capacity as chief justice, we’ll address it on the administrative side.
The bench also noted that the interview transcript supported the Supreme Court’s directive.
SRISHTI BHARDWAJ, B.COM LL.B.
