Calcutta High Court on Monday refused to take suo motu cognisance of a statement made by Trinamul Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee on the role of a section of the judiciary.
A vacation division bench headed by Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharya also refused to initiate a contempt of court proceeding against Abhishek, as demanded by advocate Sushmita Saha Dutta.
“No specific allegation is found in the statement by the general secretary of the party. He had said one per cent judges are acting like henchmen of the Centre. But in Calcutta High Court, there are 41 judges,” Justice Bhattacharya said. “Who are those one percent judges?” the judge asked while dismissing the prayer.
Adding that the court should “ignore” the issue, Justice Bhattacharya said: “There are more serious issues pending before the court.”
Justice Bhattacharya, however, observed that public representatives should be more careful while making statements that might tarnish the image of judges or the judiciary.
At a public rally in Haldia on Saturday, Banerjee had said one percent of high court judges were working hand in glove with the Centre and ordering CBI probes into all cases.
The events took a political turn a day later on Sunday when governor Jagdeep Dhankhar took a dig at the Diamond Harbour MP and said Abhishek had “crossed the red line” by attacking the judiciary from a public meeting. “Constitutional institutions in the state are under attack, the attack on judiciary is reprehensible,” Dhankhar had said.
The Diamond Harbour MP hit back at the governor on Monday from a public meeting at Shyamnagar. Abhishek said he had the right to criticise judgments and believed that he had made the correct move since it had evoked a response from the governor.
“If I say a word about one per cent of the judiciary, who is responding to it? The governor. This means I’ve hit the correct spot,” Banerjee said, adding that he had immense respect for the judiciary.
“You can order a CBI probe on SSC, PSC, Saradha, Narada and everything. It doesn’t matter to me. The Trinamul Congress doesn’t do politics with the CBI, ED or police in front. It puts forward the people’s demands,” the MP said. “But the CBI doesn’t have any acceptability.… Mamata Banerjee has said that her government will support the CBI probe. But the CBI will also have to work impartially.”
He then went on to question why Trinamul MLA Madan Mitra, who was sitting on the stage, kept behind bars for years just for sharing a dais with Saradha owner Sudipto Sen. “If Madan Mitra can be arrested then why not Prime Minister Modi who was seen on the same stage with Nirav Modi? Why this bias?” Abhishek asked.
The Trinamul national general secretary also said whichever leader or bureaucrat he/she might be, everyone would “bow down” to the court’s order, if allegations regarding the recruitment of teachers through the School Service Commission were proven correct.
“We thank the judiciary. Ninety-nine per cent of the people are still standing tall with their heads held high. That is why India is still alive. The Supreme Court has a firm backbone that is why India has not yet been destroyed,” Abhishek said.
Governor Dhankhar on Monday tweeted a statement which said the chief secretary of the state had been called upon to initiate all expected action and update by June 6 “as regards public targeting of judiciary by Diamond Harbour MP”.
The BJP, on the other hand, took a dig at Abhishek for repeatedly “attacking” the judiciary. The party’s chief spokesperson, Samik Bhattacharya, said the Trinamul Congress government was trying to initiate a Diwan-i-Am like system in Bengal. “In this system, the chief minister will function as the chief justice of the high court as it happened in the Mughal era. People had given them a befitting reply in 2019 and so they will in 2024,” Bhattacharya said.
