Supreme Court Stays Calcutta High Court Proceedings After Judge Accused Fellow Judge Of Favouring TMC's Abhishek Banerjee

Taking suo motu cognizance of a judge accusing another judge of "acting clearly for some political party in this state", a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court stayed all the proceedings before the Calcutta High Court, Indian Express reported.

Reversing the order of a division bench, a single-judge bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the Calcutta High Court had directed the CBI investigation to continue into alleged irregularities in MBBS admissions in the state.

This came after the division bench of Justices Soumen Sen and Uday Kumar ordered an interim stay on the Wednesday order of Justice Gangopadhyay, where he directed a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in MBBS admission.

Justice Gangopadhyay wrote in order, “Now I have to do something which is though unusual, but unless I do this, I think I will fail in my duty to hold the sanctity of judiciary in general and this court in particular. It is fully in respect of His Lordship, the Hon’ble Justice Soumen Sen”.

He further alleged in his order, quoting Justice Amrita Sinha, that Justice Sen had dictated to not disturb Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee as he "has a political future" by dismissing petitions and stop live-streaming of Justice Sinha’s court.

After these unprecedented developments on Thursday, Chief Justice DY Chandrachud set up a five-judge bench comprising himself and the four most senior judges of the court – Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, Surya Kant and Aniruddha Bose.