Judge stuns Calcutta HC, questions division bench – Times of India

KOLKATA: A Calcutta high court judge complained on Wednesday about a series of stay orders by a division bench on his orders relating to the alleged irregularities in recruitment of teachers in state-run schools of Bengal.
Advocates said they could not recall a precedent in which a Calcutta HC judge had questioned a division bench’s stays in an open court and then asked the court administration to forward his complaint to Supreme Court Chief Justice N V Ramana and Calcutta HC Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava.
Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay questioned the order by the division bench of Justice Harsh Tandon and Justice Rabindranath Samanta, which had stayed his order seeking an affidavit on the assets of School Service Commission advisor Shanti Prasad Sinha.
Justice Gangopadhyay said the appeal court, after holding that there was “no element warranting interference”, had interfered in the order and held that “the affidavit of assets shall remain in a sealed cover and shall not be divulged or circulated to litigating parties or their counsel. That shall be appropriately dealt with at the time of final decision…”
“I do not know what this court will do with a sealed cover in this proceeding when the hand of this appeal court has been tied by the above observation,” Justice Gangopadhyay observed.
“This is, I am sorry to say, is a highest degree of double standard,” Justice Gangopadhyay observed.
Pointing out that his order dated March 25 had been declared by the division bench as tentative, Justice Gangopadhyay wondered how such a declaration was made and why as it had diluted the observations made by him. “Regarding my finding as to illegal appointments, it is held by the said division bench that it was a ‘perceived notion’. When the illegal appointments are hard facts, why such a diluting word, ‘notion’, has been used, I do not know. The said appeal court has also taken into account the ‘thought process’ behind the direction passed upon the appellant to file an affidavit of assets. I don’t know how the ‘thought process’ of this Judge can be known,” he observed, before adjourning the case until April 5.