Calcutta High Court holds late evening hearing to order release of lawyer arrested from inside courtroom

A division bench of the Calcutta High Court held a late evening hearing and stayed the order passed by single-judge Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay who had ordered the arrest of a lawyer from inside the court on charges of contempt of court..A bench of Justices Harish Tandon and Hiranmay Bhattacharya held the hearing at 8:30 pm after advocate Prosenjit Mukherjee, who was arrested, wrote a letter to the Court seeking relief. .The division bench then proceeded to stay the order of Justice Gangopadhyay noting,"We feel that it is a fit case where the interim protection is to be extended to the appellant being a Member of the Bar and of a legal profession. We, therefore, stay operation of the order dated 18th December 2023 by which the appellant has been directed to undergo a period of three days civil imprisonment until further order of this Court.".The letter by Mukherjee to the Court said that he was taken into custody by the Sheriff/Deputy Sheriff despite tendering unconditional apology before the single-judge.He was later released but he told the division bench that he apprehends that the order may, if implemented, put him in custody again.."It is fairly and candidly submitted by the appellant that he was later on released from the custody taken by the Sheriff but still apprehends that the order may, if implemented, put him again in custody and considering the extreme urgency and the unprecedented events happened in the Court, the Bench was constituted for taking up the instant matter and to pass an appropriate order as may be deemed fit and proper," the Court noted. The Court, therefore, proceeded to stay the single-judge order. .The Calcutta High Court Bar Association had earlier unanimously resolved and requested the Chief Justice of the High Court to withdraw all judicial work from Justice Gangopadhyay..In a letter addressed to Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam, the Bar Association said that it has passed a unanimous resolution in this regard "after the extreme insult meted out to advocate Prosenjit Mukherjee.".The association had also resolved that no member shall step into the court of Justice Gangopadhyay unless he "apologises"..[Read Order]