Collegium recommends making Justice Kausik Chanda a Permanent Judge of Calcutta High Court

The Supreme Court Collegium has recommended the appointment of additional Judge of Calcutta High Court, Justice Kausik Chanda as a permanent judge of that High Court.

A notification to this effect was published on Wednesday late evening, which also intimated that the decision was taken following a Collegium meeting held on Tuesday.

"The Supreme Court Collegium in its meeting held on 17th August, 2021 has approved the proposal for appointment of Shri Justice Kausik Chanda, Additional Judge of the Calcutta High Court as Permanent Judge of that High Court", stated the notification.

Justice Kausik Chanda was appointed as an additional High Court Judge in September 2019 and was sworn in the following month.

Justice Chanda was born on January 4, 1974. He graduated from the Calcutta University in Law in 1997. He went on to enroll as an advocate on December 18, 1998.

He was designated as a Senior Advocate on June 10, 2014. Later, he was appointed as the Additional Solicitor General of India on April 9, 2015, a position he held till his appointment as additional judge in September 2019.

Recently, Justice Chanda recused from hearing the election petition filed by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee challenging the election of BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari from Nandigram constituency in the 2021 assembly elections.

The development followed after Banerjee wrote to Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal requesting that the case be reassigned to a Bench other than one comprising of Justice Chanda on apprehensions of bias since the Judge was an active member of the BJP before he became a judge.

Banerjee had also claimed that she had objected to Justice Chanda being confirmed as a permanent judge of the Calcutta High Court and this could lead to bias on the part of Justice Chanda in a case involving her.

While the Judge eventually chose to recuse from hearing the case, he also imposed Rs 5 lakh as costs on Banerjee for the calculated manner in which she had sought his recusal. The past association of a judge with a political party by itself cannot form apprehension of bias and cannot be a ground to seek his recusal from hearing cases involving that political party or its leaders, the Judge added in his judgment.