In some dramatic developments over Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay and the Supreme Court's back and forth over documents pertaining to the transfer of a case, the apex court stayed the order passed by the Calcutta High Court Judge earlier in the day which directed the Secretary General of the Supreme Court to produce before him the transcription of his TV interview and the High Court report on which was placed before the CJI's bench.

The stay order was passed after the Supreme Court conducted a special 8pm hearing to consider Justice Gangopadhyay's order.

The Supreme Court, by means of its judgment delivered on Friday morning, had reassigned the recruitment scam case hearings pertaining to Trinamul Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee from the Bench of Justice Gangopadhyay to a different judge.

But in his bid to be certain whether his case was adequately presented before the Chief Justice of India’s Division Bench at the country’s top court, Gangopadhyay had called for the documents.

The judge said on Friday he would be in his court chambers till 15 minutes past midnight to go through the documents based on which the Supreme Court passed its order.

Sitting in his usual court number 17 at the Calcutta High Court during hearing hours, barely a couple of hours after the apex court passed its verdict, Gangopadhyay directed the Supreme Court Secretary General, through the High Court’s Registrar General, to submit before him by Friday midnight the transcript of his television interview and the high court report which were submitted before the Chief Justice of India’s Division Bench.

Gangopadhyay said he wanted to personally scan the interview transcript and the report submitted before the Supreme Court by the Registrar General in the form of an affidavit in compliance with the directions of the top court. “I want to do this for the sake of transparency in the case,” the judge remarked.

The Bench of CJI Chandrachud had, on Monday, directed the Calcutta High Court to submit within four days a report on whether Justice Gangopadhyay’s TV interview last September was in violation of norms of judicial impartiality on a pending case which the judge was still hearing.

It was based on careful scrutiny of that report, the interview transcript and a response note sent by Gangopadhyay that the CJI’s Bench decided on Friday that the judge’s case should be reassigned.

Speculations were rife on whether Justice Gangopadhyay would send his response if he found any anomaly in the documents he asked for and whether that could lead to a Supreme Court – High Court face off.

With the latest stay order from the Apex court, it's uncertain what Justice Gangopadhyay's next course of action would be.

Earlier, on a lighter note, Gangopadhyay offered his “pranaam” to Trinamul Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh for “foretelling things which eventually came true”. Ghosh, while criticizing the judge for some of his in-court observations while hearing the recruitment scam cases had stated that “the judge must leave his chair and take on the Trinamul directly by joining politics”.