Calcutta High Court Judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay Resigns After Announcing His Plan To Join Politics

He is likely to announce his future plans of transition into the realm of politics at 2 PM today, in a press conference scheduled to be held at his residence in Calcutta's Salt Lake.

In an interview with local news outlet ABP Ananda, Justice Gangopadhyay had on Sunday revealed his plans to step down on Tuesday, March 4.

"I would like to thank the ruling party in West Bengal for challenging me to enter the political field…,” the judge stated in his interview, hinting at an imminent foray into active politics.

While the judge has not yet confirmed his political affiliations or intentions to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, he expressed openness to joining prominent parties such as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Indian National Congress (INC), or the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM).

His decision to resign comes with five months left until his scheduled retirement in August 2024.

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Tenure marked by controversy

Notably, Justice Gangopadhyay has been mired in controversy throughout his tenure, culminating in his disagreement with a division bench led by a senior judge in January this year. Not only did he defy a stay order issued by a division bench regarding his order directing a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into purported irregularities in medical admissions in West Bengal, but he also made damning allegations against Justice Soumen Sen. In this unusual order, Justice Gangopadhyay accused Justice Sen of 'misconduct' and harbouring political bias in favour of the state's ruling dispensation.

This row, besides sparking outrage, also led to a Supreme Court five-judge bench taking suo motu cognisance of the matter.

Early last year, the Calcutta High Court judge was criticised by the Supreme Court for giving an interview to a local Bengali news channel regarding the infamous cash-for-jobs scam in the state, while presiding over a batch of matters relating to the scam in question. In this interview, Justice Gangopadhyay allegedly made imputations against TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

When Banerjee approached the top court with his objections against these statements, a bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud observed that judges had no business giving television interviews and instructed Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam of the Calcutta High Court to re-assign all pending proceedings in the primary teachers' recruitment scam before Justice Gangopadhyay to another bench.

On the same day, Justice Gangopadhyay passed a suo moto order directing the Supreme Court's secretary general to provide him with the translation of the controversial media interview that was placed before the apex court in the morning. Later in the day, while staying this order in a special 8 PM sitting, the Supreme Court noted that “the order of the present nature ought not to have been passed in a judicial proceeding, more so, keeping in view of judicial discipline.”