The battle between Acting Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court and the Trinamool Congress turned murkier after the Bar Council of West Bengal, wrote to the Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana, asking him to remove Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal alleging that he is a “prejudiced, biased and skewed Judge” in order to retain the “majesty and sanctity” of the country’s oldest chartered court.
The letter came few days after chief minister Mamata Banerjee objected to the assignment of Justice Kausik Chanda for hearing her petition challenging the election of BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, alleging that Chanda has a long association with the BJP. The chief minister wrote to Bindal to reassign the case to some other judge. The case is still pending with the court.
Referring to the case, the chairman of the Bar Council of West Bengal, Ashoke Deb who is also an MLA of ruling Trinamool Congress, wrote, “Mamata Banerjee had filed an election petition before the Hon’ble Calcutta High Court challenging the victory of Suvendu Adhikari in the West Bengal assembly elections. Election petitions are civil matters heard by a single Judge presiding over the original side of the Calcutta High Court.”
“The said matter was filed and mentioned before the single bench headed by Hon’ble Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharya and His Lordship was pleased to fix the said matter for hearing. In the meantime, Hon’ble Justice Bindal snatched away the matter from Justice Bhattacharya’s determination and assigned the same to his favorite judge Hon’ble Justice Kausik Chanda,” the letter said.
“Hon’ble Justice Bindal is responsible for brewing a storm at the Calcutta High Court by assigning the matter to Hon’ble Justice Kausik Chanda while being completely and fully aware of Hon’ble Justice Chanda’s long-standing association with the BJP. Any reasonable person having a basic sense of ethics and morality would not have done something so ludicrous,” it said.
The 26 member body of the Bar Council of West Bengal enrolls all state advocates and has a TMC Rajya Sabha MP and a KMC board of administrators member, among its members.
In the letter dated June 25, citing the manner in which the Narada case was dealt with, Deb claimed Bindal’s conduct indicated that he “did not have any regard for judicial propriety and has committed a mockery of the judicial conscience.”
“Hon’ble Justice Bindal by an order dated 17.05.2021 had stayed an interim order of the bail passed by the Special CBI Court in favor of members of a certain political dispensation without giving the aggrieved parties an opportunity of being heard,” the letter added.
“The fact that the five-judge bench headed by justice Bindal has allowed repeated requests by CBI to file affidavits but has declined the requests made by chief minister Mamata Banerjee and law minister Moloy Ghatak to file affidavits and contest the matter where serious allegations have been made against them is a clear sign of Justice Bindal’s” apparent bias:”, Deb’s letter elaborates.
Hearing an appeal by Banerjee and Ghatak, the Supreme Court on Friday had asked the Calcutta High Court to accept fresh applications from them, setting aside the Calcutta HC’s June 9 order refusing their affidavits.
“We beseech Your Lordship to take immediate steps for removal of Hon’ble Justice Rajesh Bindal as a Judge of Calcutta High Court so that the majesty and sanctity of the court is upheld and to ensure people’s confidence in the judiciary does not fall to pieces. Unless urgent steps are taken for the removal of Hon’ble Justice Rajesh Bindal, we will be mute spectators to the continuous travesty of justice at the hands of a prejudiced, biased and skewed Judge and justice will be denied to the unguarded citizens of this great nation,” the letter said.