Justice Amrita Sinha of Calcutta High Court on Thursday rejected pleas by Abhishek Banerjee and Kuntal Ghosh of the Trinamul Congress to recall Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay’s earlier order to the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to interrogate the duo in the school recruitment "scam".
Justice Sinha also fined each of them Rs 25 lakh for wasting the court’s time in trying to have Justice Gangopadhyay’s April 13 order dismissed and told the two to deposit the amounts with the registrar-general immediately.
After Justice Sinha’s order, the central agencies are free to interrogate Abhishek, the national general secretary of Trinamul and Ghosh, a leader of the party's youth wing.
Soon after the delivery of the verdict, Abhishek, who was away in Durgapur, was contacted by his counsel. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew told his counsel to file a special leave petition before the Supreme Court against the verdict of Justice Sinha once a copy of her judgment was available.
“Yes, we are awaiting the entire text of the judgment delivered today (Thursday). After receiving the copy, we will move the apex court of the country, seeking justice,” said Abhishek’s counsel.
Abhishek’s lawyer Kishore Datta mentioned before high court Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam the fine that Justice Sinha had imposed on his client. Datta asked how a judge could fine an applicant in such a manner and sought the intervention of the Chief Justice. Justice Sivagnanam assured Datta that he would consider the matter on Friday.
After delivering her judgment, Justice Sinha told CBI counsel Bilwadal Bhattacharyya that her court was not happy with the progress of the investigation.
“(This) I have mentioned in my judgment,” she said and fixed the investigation issue for hearing on June 9.
After Justice Gangopadhyay’s April 13 order, Abhishek had approached the Supreme Court. Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member Abhishek Manu Singhvi, the lawyer appearing for Abhishek, told the Supreme Court that Justice Gangopadhyay had named his client in an interview granted by the judge to ABP Ananda.
The lawyer sought an order for shifting the case from Justice Gangopadhyay to any other judge of the high court.
The Supreme Court accepted Singhvi’s prayer and issued an order asking (then Acting) Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam to shift two primary school recruitment-related cases from the court of Justice Gangopadhyay.
Accordingly, two cases from Justice Gangopadhyay’s court were assigned to Justice Sinha. Since then, she has been monitoring the investigation by the CBI and the ED.
On April 12, during the hearing of the case related to the recruitment “scam”, the counsel appearing for the ED had informed Justice Gangopadhyay that he had information that Ghosh, who was in custody, had written two letters to the CBI court judge and the Hastings police station, alleging that the ED investigators had been inflicting tremendous pressure on him to name Abhishek in the case.
The lawyer claimed the letters were written on March 29, two days after Abhishek issued a statement at a public meeting that he had definite information that the ED and the CBI investigators had been forcing the arrested accused of “scam” cases to name him, so that they could frame him.
On the basis of the ED submission, Justice Gangopadhyay ordered the ED and the CBI to question Abhishek and Ghosh.
