Snehal Upadhyay-
Published on: August 20, 2021, at 15:30 IST
Additional Judge of Calcutta High Court Kaushik Chanda, who was appointed as a Permanent Judge by Supreme Court Collegium, was accused of bias over his alleged proximity to BJP by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Justice Chanda on July 7 has excused himself from dealing with a petition which was filed by the Trinamool Congress chief against the election of Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari from Nandigram.
After expressing her claims and her bias against the Judge, the judge recused himself from hearing the case.
The collegium is headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana, besides the Chief Justice Justices, U U Lalit and A M Khanwilkar were also part of this three-member collegium, which works upon the appointment of High Court judges.
The Counsel representing Ms. Mamata Banerjee while seeking reassignment of her election petition contended that “The chief minister had objected to the confirmation of the Hon’ble Judge as a Permanent Judge of the Hon’ble High Court at Calcutta.”
Justice Chanda meanwhile trying to rescue himself from the case had imposed a fine of cost Rs 5 lakh on Ms Banerjee on the grounds of which she had sought his recusal.
Justice Chanda further said that “If such an argument is accepted, the election petition cannot be tried before this court since the petitioner, in her capacity as the Chief Minister of the State, has either objected or gave consent to the appointments of most of the Hon’ble Judges of this Court.”
Justice Chanda in his order has stated that “A letter by the petitioner’s counsel to the Acting Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court on June 16 seeking that the election petition is reassigned to another judge contained highly confidential information concerning the appointment of a Judge of the High Court, and the petitioner, being the Chief Minister of the State, who took the oath of secrecy, was constitutionally obliged to maintain the secrecy of such information”.
Ms Banerjee’s counsel recommended that Justice Chanda should excuse himself from this case as he was associated with the BJP legal cell before he was appointed a judge and had represented BJP in several cases before the High Court as a lawyer. This was the reason why Ms Banerjee expressed her grievances against Justice Chanda that he may be biased while deciding the case.
