The matter is rooted in a petition filed before the High Court alleging the issuance of fake caste certificates in West Bengal.
It first came up before Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay who ordered a CBI inquiry even though no such prayer was made in the petition.
The single-judge’s order was stayed the same day by a division bench of Justices Soumen Sen and Uday Kumar.
Regardless, Justice Gangopadhyay proceeded to allow the handover of the case papers to the CBI the same afternoon, while recording that there was no intimation by the State counsel of the division bench’s stay order
Further, the very next day (January 25), Justice Gangopadhyay passed another order, indicating that the division bench judgment ought to be ignored. The said order also contained several diatribes against Justice Sen who was accused of being an “interested party.”
He alleged in the order that Justice Sen had called another Calcutta High Court judge, Justice Amrita Sinha, to his chambers recently, and told her that Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee has a political future that should not be disturbed by means of judicial orders.
Justice Sen also passed another order on January 25 criticising the order passed by Justice Gangopadhyay and ordered the CBI to hand the case papers back to the State.
The Supreme Court took cognisance of the rift and, on Saturday (January 27), stayed the proceedings before both the single-judge and division bench of the High Court.
The Court also stayed the order for CBI probe passed by single-judge Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay.
Source: Barandbench
