New Delhi: A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court stayed proceedings at the Calcutta high court in a case where a single-judge bench defied a stay order passed by a division bench.The apex court took suo motu cognisance of the unusual developments and called for a special Saturday sitting today.Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, a Calcutta high court judge at perpetual odds with the state government, had earlier ignored an order by a division bench, staying his bench’s order for a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into medical college admission irregularities in Bengal.LiveLaw has reported that the five-judge bench of the Supreme Court was presided over by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and comprised Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B.R, Gavai, Surya Kant, and Aniruddha Bose.“We will stay further proceedings. We are issuing notice to the State of West Bengal and the original petitioner before the HC. We will list the proceeding on Monday again. We will stay all further proceedings in the writ petition and the Letters Patent Appeal and the implementation of the single bench order referring the investigation to CBI,” the CJI said.Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appeared for the West Bengal government. He said the government is also filing a special leave petition against the initial single-judge bench order calling for the CBI enquiry. Senior Advocate Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi appeared for Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and MP Abhishek Banerjee. Banerjee is mentioned in all the matters.Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta said that while he is defending neither the single-judge bench nor the division bench’s order, the manner in which the division bench passed the stay order was objectionable.The case has its roots in a January 24 ruling by a division bench of Justices Soumen Sen and Uday Kumar who had stayed the single bench of Justice Gangopadhyay’s order calling for the CBI probe.This order was not communicated to Justice Gangopadhyay by the government, over which the division bench has asked the registrar general of the high court to file an answer. On January 27, Justice Gangopadhyay said he had “no other option but to ignore the order of the said Division Bench as the order has been passed in continuation of the illegal appeal void ab initio.”He called the order “illegal” as the division bench had no power to consider the appeal without a server copy of the single-bench order or a memo of appeal.He also accused Justice Soumen Sen of bias and misconduct and asked the CBI to begin its investigation.At loggerheads with the Mamata Banerjee government over some of his judgments which do not favour her administration, Justice Gangopadhyay had last given an interview to a television channel to air his grievances, following which the Supreme Court had said judges cannot give interviews to the media on pending matters.However, the judge’s move was also seen as a crusade against alleged corruption, especially in the light of the fact that he had earlier exposed a teacher recruitment exam racket in the state.
