Who is Abhijit Gangopadhyay, the fiesty judge who took on TMC?

In a career spanning close to four decades, Gangopadhyay had also been in a confrontation with a senior judge for overruling his order.

Calcutta High Court judge Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who tendered his resignation to the President earlier this week, has officially joined the BJP in West Bengal ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

There has been speculations that he could be fielded from the Tamluk constituency in the state, which was won by the Trinamool Congress in the last three general election.

Who is Abhijit Gangopadhyay 

Born in August 1962, Gangopadhyay is no stranger to controversy. Be it getting into a confrontation with West Bengal’s advocate general or being asked by the Supreme Court not to speak to media on a subjudice case, he has seen it all.

In a career spanning close to four decades, including five years as a high court judge, Gangopadhyay had also been in a confrontation with a senior judge for overruling his order. The confrontation, which occurred in January 2024, was finally put to an end when the Supreme Court intervened and transferred the case before itself. In the last one year, the apex court had to, in fact, convene special benches on holidays or beyond court hours to pass orders in cases that were passed by Gangopadhyay.

Moneycontrol takes a look at who Justice Gangopadhyay is and the controversies he has been embroiled in so far.

Early career:

Born in Kolkata, Gangopadhyay attended Mitral Institution, a vernacular medium school, from where he passed out in 1979. He then pursued law at Hazra Law College in Kolkata. Though a lawyer, Gangopadhyay started his career as a grade A officer in West Bengal Civil Services (WBCS). However, he quit his job to take a plunge into the legal profession.

He was appointed an additional judge of Calcutta High Court in 2018 and was made a permanent judge in July 2020. He was to retire in August 2024, however, he chose to resign before retirement.

Controversies:

In November 2021, Gangopadhyay directed a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the School Service Commission (SSC) corruption case. After following up on the case and the inquiry, in April 2022 Gangopadhyay ordered Partha Chatterjee, a former minister in the Mamata Banerjee led Trinamool Congress (TMC) Cabinet, to appear before the CBI. He also laid down very stringent conditions for his appearance that made it impossible for the politician to evade appearance. However, a two-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court eventually stayed the order.

This led a bunch of TMC aligned lawyers to protest outside his courtroom and block its entry. The then governor of West Bengal Jagdeep Dhankar wrote to the chief minister on this issue. In August 2022, he engaged in a heated exchange with the lawyers present in his courtroom after he permitted some journalists who were present in his court to record the proceedings. The lawyers had accused Gangopadhyay of converting the courtroom into a ‘bazaar’.

In April 2023, Gangopadhyay gave a one-hour interview to Bengali television channel ABP Ananda over the SSC corruption case and expressed his opinion on how TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee’s involvement must be investigated. Banerjee moved the Supreme Court against Gangopadhyay hearing the case. A bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, after reading the transcript of the interview, directed the Chief Justice of Calcutta HC to transfer the case to some other judge, while observing that judges have ‘no business’ giving TV interviews on pending cases.

However, on the very evening this order was passed, Gangopadhyay directed the secretary general of the Supreme Court to send him a copy of the transcript of the television interview that the apex court had relied on, by 12 am the next morning. Gangopadhyay in his order had said he wanted to read the transcript for the sake of transparency.

In January 2024, Gangopadhyay ordered a CBI investigation into the alleged scam in issuing caste certificates to candidates aspiring for reserved category MBBS seats in West Bengal. However, this order was stayed by a division bench of the Calcutta High Court. The judge then proceeded to overrule the decision of a division bench of Justices Soumen Sen and Uday Kumar Ganguly, which had stayed the CBI investigation order. He said, “Justice Sen is acting clearly for some political party in this State and, therefore, the orders passed in the matters involving State, are required to be relooked if the Hon'ble Supreme Court thinks so."

The Supreme Court suo moto took this case up after constituting a five-judge bench and transferred all the cases pertaining to the issue before itself to avoid further confrontation.