Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay vs. Justice Soumen Sen: LIVE UPDATES from Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is hearing a suo motu case concerning the events that transpired in the last week at the Calcutta High Court, which included a judge of the High Court lashing out at another judge for "acting for a political party in the State."

The case stemmed from a petition filed before the High Court alleging 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, 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, stayed the proceedings before both the single-judge and division bench of the High Court.

The Court also stayed the order for the CBI probe passed by single-judge Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay.

The top court further sought the response of the Calcutta High Court as well as the West Bengal government in the matter before fixing the matter for hearing today.

Live updates of the hearing today feature here.