Resigning from the bench of a High Court and joining a political party, just to hit back at another political party, is probably not the best strategy for the former Calcutta High Court judge
By Sujit Bhar
On March 7, at a well publicised function, controversial former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He refused to take questions on that day, and said that he had said much of all he wished to say at the press conference he had held after his resignation from the bench.
A former honourable member of the bench joining politics is neither a new phenomenon in India nor in many parts of the world. In India, however, this sort of “revolving door” syndrome, where you become a favoured judge of a ruling dispensation, then after the judgeship is over you return to “power” immediately through an alternative portal provided with care, seems to have become the norm.
One can cite examples in Justice Palanisamy Sathasivam, the 40th chief justice of India who demitted office in 2014 and was later appointed the 21st governor of Kerala. One can also cite the example of Justice Ranjan Gogoi, the 46th chief justice of India, who was nominated by President Ram Nath Kovind as a member of the Rajya Sabha.
In the case of Justice Arun Mishra (who retired from the Supreme Court), the current chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, a quasi-judicial body, this example has a semi-resonance if one considers the huge ambit of the judicial system of India, which brings within it the tribunals too.
There are earlier examples as well. Justice Koka Subba Rao was the chief justice of India in 1966. He is famous for ruling that the amending (of the Constitution) power cannot be used to abridge or take away the fundamental rights. Post his stint on the bench, he was invited by Minoo Masani of the Swatantra Party to contest for the president of India in 1967 as a candidate of united opposition parties. He lost to Zakir Hussain.
In 1983, the Supreme Court judge, Baharul Islam, resigned six weeks before his scheduled retirement from the Lok Sabha polls as a Congress candidate from Barpeta in Assam.
The good and/or the bad of each case should be looked into carefully, but in the case of Justice Gangopadhyay, the issue got mired in a lot of controversies that bears the fingerprint of the judge himself.
The key issues
There are two primary issues to consider:
The first is his association with the legal world. He is from a law family—his father was a lawyer—but his own stint as a lawyer had probably been less than spectacular, despite him having made it public that his legal guru is none other than CPI(M) leader and senior lawyer Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya.
He joined the Calcutta High Court bench pretty late in life and his stint was short, within which he had not only been able to alienate most lawyers of the Court, as well as some other brother judges in open spats, but had also been successful in landing in the bad books of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud. The former judge of the Calcutta High Court probably does not leave the judiciary with fond memories, neither will the judiciary be able to recall any fond moments with him.
The second is about his political associations/leanings that he has barely been able to hide, even within the statutorily neutral environment of the judiciary. When he projected his disciple mode, people were sure he was at heart a CPI(M) supporter. When he started taking pot shots at the Trinamool Congress, some gullible people had created a halo around Mr Gangopadhyay. Thereafter, though, they have remained deeply disturbed.
More importantly, he has made politically sensitive comments while he was a sitting judge, and has even given a detailed interview to the effect. He had spoken ill about Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee, resulting in the Supreme Court coming down heavily on him in April 2023. The top court had said that judges have no business granting interviews on pending matters.
CJI DY Chandrachud’s comment on April 24 said it all. He had said: “I just want to say that judges have no business granting interviews on matters which are pending. If he said that about the petitioner (Mr Banerjee), he has no business participating in the proceedings. The question is whether a judge who has made statements like these about a political personality should be allowed to participate in the hearings. There has to be some process.”
Gangopadhyay knew what was coming. Sure enough, on April 28, the Supreme Court asked the chief justice of the Calcutta High Court to reassign the case to another judge and said this was necessary given “the need to preserve public confidence in the administration of justice.”
His frequent quarrels
As for run-ins, this ex-judge has also had issues with lawyers, one of them resulting in his having to apologise, as lawyers boycotted his Court. He had ordered the arrest of a lawyer from his courtroom on charges of contempt.
His run-ins with the Trinamool Congress were legendary and the ignominy of an entire case being just taken away from him will stay. This added no feather to his cap.
Mr Gangopadhyay probably also had a rather strange idea of the powers and abilities of a High Court judge. He issued an order to the secretary general of the Supreme Court, directing that the documents concerning his removal (a detailed CD of the entire interview given to ABP Ananda, a Bengali channel) be produced before him by midnight.
He even wrote in his order: “I direct the Secretary General of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India to produce before me the report and the official translation of the interview given by me in the media and the affidavit of the Registrar General of this Court in original, forthwith by 12 midnight today.” He also said that he would wait in his chamber till 12:15 am for the documents.
The top court had to hold a sitting late in the evening to put on hold this order.
And, possibly the last straw, was his clash with Justice Soumen Sen, who he accused of working for a political party. This order was stayed by a division bench of the High Court, comprising Justices Soumen Sen and Uday Kumar. Mr Gangopadhyay even went so far as to comment that the order passed by Justices Sen and Kumar was “wholly illegal and has to be ignored”.
The Supreme Court had no option but to stay all proceedings in the Calcutta High Court in the matter, including Mr Gangopadhyay’s order. In the end, it was a victory for the Trinamool Congress.
Thereafter came the resignation, a rambunctious press conference, and his joining the BJP on March 7.
At the official ceremony, neither attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, nor by Home Minister Amit Shah or even BJP president JP Nadda, Gangopadhyay refused to take questions, just saying: “Aj ami ekebare ekta natun jogote pa dilam (Today, I have stepped into a completely new world). I want to function as a disciplined soldier and am ready to perform as per instructions of the party.”
The political life
If Mr Gangopadhyay has had the misfortune of thinking that a political life is in any way connected or similar to his brief stint on the bench, then he is probably deeply mistaken. He has barely been able to prove his aptitude in either the state service where he worked for a while, or as a lawyer or even as a judge. A leap into the super competitive world of politics may prove to be a leap from the frying pan into the fire.
Politics is such an unforgiving animal, that this ex-judge, known for his whims and unsteady policies, may end up walking over burning charcoal. This is especially true for the rough and tumble of West Bengal politics, where violence is the order of the day.
He hopes to get a safe seat to contest, if at all he is given a ticket, but if he fails, he will be history. His many innings would have come to a screeching halt. Technically, there are no safe seats in West Bengal for the BJP, and he is completely unsuitable for any other state because, as he has admitted, his Hindi is not good. This is, thus, just one chance he gets. Being new in politics and getting into the thick of things just before the general elections, he is looking at a very steep wall.
That wall will make him a celebrity or stop him dead in his tracks.