Supreme Court stays another case before Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay after conflict with same division bench of Justice Soumen Sen

In what could be the second such instance in the past one week, the Supreme Court has stayed proceedings in a case pending before Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay in Calcutta High Court in which he had questioned a division bench order in a case related to the alleged scam in recruitment of teachers by West Bengal Board of Primary Education [Sumit Ghosh and ors vs Moutusi Roy and ors]..In an instance similar to fake caste certificate scam in which Justice Gangopadhyay had chosen to ignore a division bench order, the single-judge in the recruitment scam-related case as well had questioned the same division bench's stay order against his direction for publication of panel of candidates. The division bench which passed the orders in the both cases is headed by Justice Soumen Sen. The top court's order for stay of proceedings before Justice Gangopadhyay was passed on January 25 - the same day the controversy arose in the fake caste certificate case..Hearing an appeal in the recruitment scam matter, a bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan sought the response of the Central and West Bengal governments and passed the following direction,"Permission is granted to file Special Leave Petitions. Issue notice returnable on 15th March, 2024 ... In the meanwhile, proceedings of WPA No.18726 of 2023 along with the matters connected therewith before the learned single-judge will remain stayed".In the matter related to the teachers recruitment, Justice Gangopadhyay was seized of a petition filed by candidates who alleged they were not selected for the posts of teachers despite participation in interview and aptitude test. The candidates sought direction for disclosure of their breakup of marks and also publication of the panel of candidates in terms of Primary School Teachers Recruitment Rules, 2016.However, the prayer was opposed by West Bengal Board of Primary Education which submitted that a division bench has already stayed the direction for publication of panel.However, Justice Gangopadhyay in the order on January 3 said no stay can be granted on a provision of law. "An interim order passed by a court in respect of one matter having one set of facts, cannot be used for another matter having different set of facts, specially, when it has been admitted by the Board itself, a party, that panels have already been published by the Board which has been quoted above," he said further..Justice Gangopadhyay's order was then again challenged before the division bench of Justice Sen and Justice Uday Kumar which set it aside and questioned the manner in which the single-judge chose to ignore its order."However, the learned single-judge has not stated in the order distinguishing facts on the basis of which the aforesaid order could have been passed as in our order, we have clearly stated in paragraph 3 that the writ petitioners have to first establish their legal right as a duly qualified TET 2014 candidates in order to get a relief whatever the nature of the proceeding may be," the division bench said.While reiterating its stay order, the division bench on January 10 set aside the order passed by Justice Gangopadhyay to the Board for production the hard copy or soft copy of the panel.The decision of the division bench came to be challenged before the top court which then stayed the proceedings before Justice Gangopadhyay. Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi with advocates Parth Burman, Ranjeeta Rohatgi, and Vishal Banshal appeared for petitioner-teachers before the top court.Advocates Kunal Chatterji, Astha Sharma, Maitrayee Banerjee, Rohit Bansal, Kshitij Singh, and Sohhom Sau appeared for the West Bengal Board of Primary Education..This is the second round of litigation in the matter before the apex court.In July last year, it had set aside an interim order of the Calcutta High Court passed by Justice Gangopadhyay. He had then directed the West Bengal Board of Primary Education to conduct a fresh selection exercise for 32,000 teacher posts before the end of August 2023.By an order passed on May 12, Justice Gangopadhyay had cancelled the appointments of the teachers saying he could smell "stinking rats" in the recruitments scam known as the school jobs for cash scam.The single-judge had noted that no selection committee was constituted for the purpose of selecting eligible candidates. Instead, this was done by an outside agency, a third party that was not at all a part of the Education Board, the High Court had found.This was in clear violation of the Recruitment Rules, the single judge had observed.He had, therefore, cancelled the appointments of all the 32,000 candidates, who were found to have been untrained at the time of the recruitment process in 2016.After the top court's order intervention, the matter was remitted to a division bench. However, Justice Gangopadhyay had on January 3 again directed publishing of a fresh, error-free list of recruits..Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of Calcutta High Court: No stranger to controversy.Justice Gangopadhyay's conflict with Justice Sen's division bench is much similar to what has been witnessed in the alleged case of fake caste certificatesA 5-judge bench of the top court is seized of a a suo motu case that arose out of a bizarre order passed by Justice Gangopadhyay ignoring the division bench stay order.In a special sitting on January 27, the apex court had stayed all proceedings before the Calcutta High Court in the fake certificate scam which Justice Gangopadhyay had been hearing.On Monday, the bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud with Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, Surya Kant, and Aniruddha Bose transferred all the proceedings concerning the case from the High Court to the top court..Notably, in September last year, Justice Gangopadhyay had, in effect, overruled an order of the Chief Justice of India.Hearing the school jobs matter, Justice Gangopadhyay had proceeded to order the Chief Secretary of the West Bengal government to inform Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that no person should file complaints against the members of the SIT or the Enforcement Directorate (ED), who are investigating the scam, without the express permission of the court.One of the petitioners on whose plea the High Court passed that order has now moved the Supreme Court, stating"It is submitted that in an attempt to monitor the investigation being carried out, the Hon’ble High Court has been dictating the terms of the investigation which has potential to vitiate the entire process of investigation and trial arising therefrom ... Impugned Order passed is in complete contravention to the Order passed by this Hon’ble Court ... affects independent trial in the Criminal Court.".[Read order]