The high court Bench may have changed. But the verdict didn’t.
The Bench of Justice Amrita Sinha of the Calcutta High Court dismissed Trinamul Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee’s petition challenging a previous order passed by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay which allowed central probe agencies to examine the Trinamul leader in connection with a matter related to the cash-for-jobs scam in Bengal.
Much to the chagrin of the Trinamul’s perceived second-in-command, the court imposed a penalty of Rs 25 lakh on Banerjee for making a “frivolous” petition and for “wasting the court’s time”. A fine of exactly the same amount was also imposed by the judge on Kuntal Ghosh, an expelled TMC youth leader now in jail and a co-petitioner with Banerjee, besides dismissing his plea as well.
Thursday's order only added to the Trinamul national general secretary’s legal discomfiture with which he has been making rounds of the corridors of high judiciary for nearly two months now.
Within a couple of hours of Justice Sinha’s order, Banerjee moved the Chief justice’s Division Bench praying for an urgent hearing of his challenge petition. Kishor Dutta, former advocate general of the state and Banerjee’s counsel, submitted that the Bench could itself decide to hear the petition or could assign any other Bench for that purpose before the High Court breaks for summer vacation on Friday.
Sinha’s order effectively meant that there currently remains no legal bars before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which are probing the recruitment scam cases in the state, to summon Banerjee for questioning to get to the bottom of Ghosh’s allegation that the agencies were coercing him to name Banerjee as a scam beneficiary.
An interim order to that effect was previously passed by Judge Gangopadhyay during the course of a hearing in the primary teachers recruitment scam in connection with which Ghosh was arrested by the ED.
Ghosh, one of the prime accused in the primary teachers’ recruitment corruption cases, had written a letter from jail to the special ED court, copy-marking it to the city police, alleging that he was under pressure from the central agencies to name Abhishek Banerjee as a beneficiary of the corruption. Ghosh’s allegation, interestingly, came a day after Banerjee had himself made the same allegation from a public meeting at the Sahid Minar ground in central Calcutta on March 29 where he named TMC leaders Kunal Ghosh and Madan Mitra, who were previously arrested by the CBI in the Saradha Ponzi scam case, as being at the receiving end of “agency coercion” to name him as a scam beneficiary.
Drawing attention to Ghosh's letter before the Bench of Justice Gangopadhyay, the ED argued that the allegation coming a day after Banerjee voicing the same charges could be more than just a coincidence and that the two could be linked. The agency submitted that the dual move could hamper the course of its future investigation.
In his interim order passed on April 13, Gangopadhyay had directed the agencies to take into cognizance Banerjee’s comments made at the public meeting.
Challenging that order, Banerjee moved Supreme Court where he referred to a TV interview given by Gangopadhyay in September last year where he allegedly made certain adverse remarks against Banerjee and questioned the judge’s impartiality and judicial propriety to hear the case. On April 28, the Apex court directed the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to reassign the relevant cases to another judge and observed, “Judges have no business granting interviews on matters which are pending.”
Subsequently, Calcutta High Court Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam transferred the cases concerned to the Bench of Justice Amrita Sinha. Banerjee petitioned before the Bench seeking reprieve from the case and prayed for reconsideration of Gangopadhyay’s order. On Thurday, Sinha dismissed this petition and upheld the order of the earlier Bench opening doors for the agencies to summon Banerjee for examination.
Responding to the court order, Banerjee said: “I have full faith in the judiciary because I believe this country is running on the checks and balances ensured by our judicial system. But it is within my rights to challenge that order before a division bench or the Supreme Court and I have decided to do that at the earliest.”
“I will fully cooperate with the agency probe and if they summon me to join, I will appear before them for questioning. I will stall the Naba Jowar Yatra for a day for that, if necessary,” Banerjee, who is currently in Bankura for his grassroots connect exercise, said and added that he was yet to receive a copy of the order to help him finalize his next move.
“No cost has ever been imposed on those who move court at the drop of a hat, file PILs at will, seek permissions for public meetings or on those who move court seeking protection from police action against convoy run overs. No court time is wasted then. I have been imposed with a cost because I sought to move court from my rights. I accept that order with humility. It is with my faith in the judicial system that I will appeal against it before a division bench or the supreme Court,” the leader said.
