Senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya moved an affidavit before Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava of the high court on Thursday urging him to initiate suo motu contempt of court proceedings against chief minister Mamata Banerjee for her alleged comments on court proceedings on irregularities in school recruitments. The judge accepted the petition but told Bhattacharyya that he would take a decision later.
“Why are you not moving the case on your own? Why are you asking the court to initiate the proceedings?” the chief justice asked Bhattacharyya.
In reply, Bhattacharyya said: “I have cited references to several cases in my affidavit. The court will get the answer after going through it.”
On Tuesday, Mamata had appealed to the judiciary to not sack employees. “You want to take action against the persons found guilty of the crime (of illegally getting a school job), I have nothing to say. But please do not take away the job of an employee,” she had said.
The West Bengal School Service Commission and the West Bengal Board of Primary Education have already sacked over 3,700 school employees, following orders from the high court, on the ground that they were recruited illegally. Bhattacharyya said in his affidavit that the chief minister had tried to interfere in the jurisdiction of judges earlier as well. “This time, too, the chief minister has from a public platform tried to influence court proceedings. The chief minister has tried to prejudice the court and interfere with the due course of judicial proceedings,” he said.
