Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay vs. Justice Soumen Sen: Supreme Court takes charge and stays proceedings in Calcutta High Court

A 5-judge bench of the Supreme Court held a special sitting on Saturday and stayed all proceedings before the Calcutta High Court in the fake certificate scam [In Re: Orders of Calcutta High Court dated 24.01.2024 and 25.01.2024 and Ancillary Issues]..The fake certificate scam case before the High Court had become controversial after single-judge Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay who was hearing the matter, had made very strong remarks against another High Court judge Justice Soumen Sen who was hearing the appeal against Justice Gangopadhyay's order.A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud with Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, Surya Kant, and Aniruddha Bose today stayed the order for CBI probe passed by single-judge Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay.The Court also stayed all proceedings in the case before Justice Gangopadhyay as well as before a division bench headed by Justice Soumen Sen which was hearing the appeal against the single-judge's order. "Issue notice to the Calcutta High Court, State of West Bengal. Ms Astha Sharma accepts notice. Issue notice to original petitioner also. Pending further proceedings there shall be a stay on al proceedings before the Calcutta High Court before both division bench and the single-judge bench. The implementation of the direction issued by the single judge Justice Abhijit gangopadhyay directing CBI probe shall remain stayed," the top court directed.We will take charge now, the apex court orally said before posting the case for further hearing on January 29. .The bench was hearing a suo motu case that arose out of a bizarre order passed by Justice Gangopadhyay ignoring a division bench stay order.Single-judge Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, besides passing an order ignoring the division bench, had gone on a diatribe accusing Justice Soumen Sen who was heading the division bench, of "acting for a political party in the State"..Justice Soumen Sen of Calcutta High Court acting for political party; Supreme Court must review his orders: Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay.BackgroundThe issue stemmed from a petition before the Calcutta High Court that alleged that the issuance of fake caste certificates is rampant in the State, with many having obtained such certificates to get medical seats. On Wednesday (January 24) morning, Justice Gangopadhyay passed an order asking the West Bengal Police to hand over documents related to the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).Minutes after said order was passed, the Advocate General Kishore Datta mentioned the matter before a division bench of of Justices Soumen Sen and Uday Kumar, which stayed the single-judge's order on the same day.Justice Gangopadhyay then took up the matter again the very same day, and ordered the AG to hand over the case papers to the CBI, insisting that he was not informed of the stay order passed by the division bench.The division bench then took up the matter again on Thursday morning, and set aside the order passed by Justice Gangopadhyay.The matter, however, did not end there.The single-judge took up the matter again on Thursday (January 25), questioned the basis of the stay, and added that Justice Sen was an 'interested party'.Notably, Justice Gangopadhyay called for the division bench order to be ignored and for CBI to begin the probe immediately, before going on a personal tirade against Justice Sen.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..Hearing today in Supreme Court When the matter was taken up for hearing before the apex court today, the bench said that it will stay all proceedings before the High Court."What we will do is that we will stay further proceedings. We issue notice to State of West Bengal and original petitioner. We will list on Monday. We stay all further proceedings before High Court in both writ petition and letters patent appeal. We stay the directions issued by the single judge also directing CBI probe," the Court said.Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Central government, said that the division bench passed an order without appeal memo was concerning."I am more concerned about passing an order without appeal memo or any impugned order in place. This Court had under Article 141 had prohibited the same. I am not here defending either single judge or division bench order," SG Mehta said.The SG was referring to the majority opinion authored late Justice Chinappa Reddy in the Samarias Trading Co Pvt Ltd vs S Samuel & Ors case."We do not want to make a prima facie determination. Sometimes there are exceptional circumstances," the CJI then responded."Yes like demolition or hanging," the SG said."The division bench interfered on oral mentioning. This has to be noted," Attorney General R Venkataramani said.The Court eventually issued notice to the State of West Bengal, CBI and the Calcutta High Court and stayed the proceedings before High Court.Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appeared on behalf of State of West Bengal while Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi represented TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee..Justice Gangopadhyay is no stranger to controversy that has led to, and needed, the Supreme Court's interventions.The apex court had in April last year taken strong exception to him giving an interview to a news channel regarding Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Abhishek Banerjee even as a case concerning the politician was being heard by the judge.Soon after, in a special late evening hearing, the top court had to stay an order passed by Justice Gangopadhyay directing its Secretary-General to produce its report in connection with the said interview.