This accusation from Mamata Banerjee in the form of a public address must be taken seriously not only by the judiciary, especially by the CJI D Y Chandrachud, but also by the chief justice of Calcutta Hugh Court Justice T. S. Sivagnanam. He must do some introspection what went wrong, what mistake did the court commit that provoked Mamata, a sitting chief minister, to make such a gravely serious public remark.

It was in July 2023 that the Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee had accused a section of the Calcutta High Court of acting in a partisan manner to "strengthen a particular political party" and had expressed hope that the judiciary would work impartially and without prejudice. He had also said: "The manner in which the (Calcutta) high court is making a particular political party stronger and healthy is unprecedented in India's post-Independence history.”

Directly referring to the HC judge whose order granted BJP politician Suvendu Adhikari indefinite protection from police action, the TMC MP had said, "Honourable justice Rajasekhar Mantha has given the judgment that if Suvendu Adhikari were to commit a crime in future, no action can be taken against him. Even to lodge an FIR one has to take the court's permission.” Abhishek had also sought to know: “What is the HC's compulsion? What is the compulsion of this judge that all those who are in Suvendu's shadow have to be protected? Why have police's hands been tied? Shall I seek a similar protection, will I be given one?”

One is not sure whether Calcutta HC Chief Justice Sivagnanam would seriously look into these remarks, and initiate the process to allay any misconception from the mind of the common people. If any such process had been initiated, certainly CM Banerjee would not have come up with this nature of accusation.

For the last couple of years, the people of West Bengal have been witness to High Court ordering probe on each and every petition moved by the state BJP leaders. Obviously, this has sent out a wrong message provoking Mamata earlier to say: “They have bought the CBI. They have bought the NIA. They have bought the BSF. They have bought the CAPF.”

Certainly, any action by the judiciary must have an element of justice. A fortnight back, the Calcutta High Court cancelled the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff made through the State Level Selection Test (SLST) 2016. The question arises if this cancellation has in a true sense penalized the vulnerable staff, and if there has been any action against the guilty persons who took bribe and appointed these poor guys. They desperately needed the jobs; else they would not have offered huge amounts of bribe. Instead of hedging around, why the CBI, ED or NIA have not focussed on the guilty persons and produced them before court?

Yet another aspect of the appointments cancellation is these guys would be left in a lurch. Most of them must had borrowed petty cash for paying the bribe. It would have been better if the court had explored some other mechanism to stop the malpractice and also ensure that those with appointments are not deprived of the job that they so desperately need. Significantly, the court also ordered them to return their salaries with interest, and asked the state’s School Service Commission (SSC) to initiate a fresh appointment process. Since they have already joined their duties, why couldn’t the court ask the government to evaluate their performances and if necessary impart some kind of training? The court must realise that 25753 is not a small number. The lives of the recruits would be severely derailed with this rash decision by the High Court.

The CBI had earlier arrested former state education minister Partha Chatterjee over alleged irregularities in the recruitment. Partha has been in jail for years. Has the CBI managed to obtain concrete information from him in this matter? It must come out and expose the scam in public as was done in the case of fodder scam of Bihar. The judge’s observation is telling: “We would rather have persons of integrity appointed as teachers through an untainted selection process rather than expose students to elements securing appointments through an unscrupulous selection process.” This virtually presents the hapless 25753 appointees, who were themselves victims of an unfair system, as rogues, betraying extreme lack of empathy from the judge. Are we to believe that this huge number of people have no integrity? This is a shame for Bengal.

Moreover, why hasn’t the CBI interrogated all the persons who received appointments for cash so far? The court has said: “CBI will undertake further investigations with regard to the persons involved in the state government approving creation of supernumerary posts to accommodate illegal appointments.” But why this was not initiated during the preceding years?

Highlighting the illegalities in the recruitment process, the court stated, “SSC had appointed an agency namely M/s NYSA for the purpose of scanning and evaluating the OMR sheets by a closed-door tender process, in violation of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. Such agency had engaged another agency namely Data Scantech to scan the OMR sheets. Although scanning was done at the office premises of SSC, it is claimed by SSC that they had never engaged Data Scantech to scan the OMR sheets or authorised M/s NYSA to engage Data Scantech or any other agency.” The process adopted for recruitment underlines that Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution has been violated. But it does not automatically imply that this one violation should result in massively ruining of the lives of 25753 persons, with families and dependents, who too would be thrown into penury because of the HC’s rash decision.

If the Calcutta High Court had functioned in a transparent manner, probably Mamata would not have dared to say that the “Calcutta High court has become the 'tirtha kendra’ (pilgrimage site) of the BJP.” She even lamented that her government is unable to provide jobs to the state's youth due to the court orders. Her observation is quite important: “The BJP has no work except moving the high court against the state government… Bail is being granted to criminals and people accused of murder. I will not talk about judges but I have the right to talk about judgments. If there are faults, there should be scrutiny. But how were 26,000 jobs cancelled?"

People nurse the view that only former judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay was in touch with the BJP, even while sitting on the bench, and since then joined the saffron party formally. However, there are others too. Soon after Gangopadhyay submitted his resignation as a Calcutta high court judge, he revealed that the saffron party had been in touch with him, while he was also in touch with them. “Both sides approached each other. I approached the BJP and the BJP also approached me,” he said.

It must be noted that many other judges across the country have joined active politics. But their cases were different. They were not in touch with the parties before retirement or resigning. The case with Gangopadhyay is different. He had presided over key judgments that criticised the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in the state. Interestingly, the BJP men had been describing him as the “people’s judge” for having projected himself as crusader against the alleged corruption within the Mamata Banerjee-led government in West Bengal.

Gangopadhyay’s statement shows “absolute lack of judicial propriety” and has put the entire judiciary in a piquant situation. This could well be made out from Mamata’s anguish and frustration. In all fairness, the chief justice of Calcutta High Court should order a review of all of Gangopadhyay’s judgments. In view of his public confession, now, regardless of merit, people will get a chance to say it was delivered under undue influence of the BJP. This will badly hurt the image of the high court, which is very unfortunate. Undeniably, Gangopadhyay has inflicted severe damage to the judiciary and its public image.

Last year in April, CJI D.Y Chandrachud had said that “judges have no business granting interviews on matters which are pending”, in connection with an interview given by Gangopadhyay to a Bengali news channel in September 2022. It is also worth mentioning that TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee had moved the Supreme Court with the allegation that Gangopadhyay had shown his “dislike” for him in the interview. But in an unusual move, Gangopadhyay in a suo moto order asked the Supreme Court’s Secretary General to provide him with the translation of his controversial media interview. This led the Supreme Court to hold a special sitting to stay Gangopadhyay’s direction. (IPA Service)