Today(on 17th March),The Calcutta High Court has stayed the FIR against former judge and BJP leader Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who was accused of assaulting protesting teachers. Justice Tirthankar Ghosh highlighted that the FIR included allegations of abetment.
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KOLKATA: Today(on 17th March), The Calcutta High Court has granted a stay on the first information report (FIR) filed by the West Bengal police against former judge and current BJP leader Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay. The FIR was lodged against him on allegations of assaulting protesting teachers. Single-judge Justice Tirthankar Ghosh, considering the nature of the allegations, observed that Gangopadhyay was accused of abetment in the FIR.
Justice Ghosh also referred to a recent order by the Supreme Court, which granted interim bail to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal during the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. The High Court took note of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Kejriwal case, where it considered the general elections involving millions of voters to elect the government for the next five years.
Justice Ghosh held-
“After reviewing the Supreme Court’s perspective in Arvind Kejriwal’s case, along with the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s observation in Tamluk, Purba Medinipur regarding the case diary presented before the court, and considering Gangopadhyay’s status as a contestant in the 30-Tamluk Parliamentary Constituency, I believe that the Supreme Court’s remarks in the case of Arvind Kejriwal (mentioned above) directly relate to this situation.”
Based on these observations, the single-judge ordered a stay on the FIR and all other proceedings against Gangopadhyay, including the BJP general secretary of the Tamluk constituency, until June 14. The State has been directed to file its affidavit opposing the plea by June 12, and the next hearing will take place on that date.
The FIR against Gangopadhyay was lodged by the State police, accusing him of assaulting dismissed school employees at their protest site. The allegations included charges of attempted murder and other offenses under the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The complaint was filed by certain teaching and non-teaching staff members who lost their jobs following a ruling by the Calcutta High Court in the school jobs for cash scam case.
The reported altercation occurred on May 4 when Gangopadhyay, accompanied by his party colleague Suvendu Adhikari, led a rally before submitting his nomination papers for the Tamluk Lok Sabha seat. Throughout the rally, some BJP supporters allegedly assaulted teachers who were protesting against the loss of their jobs due to the High Court ruling.
Earlier, on May 14, another judge, Justice Jay Sengupta, recused himself from hearing the plea filed by the former judge, citing his close acquaintance with Justice Gangopadhyay. Consequently, the matter was referred to Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam, who assigned it to the bench presided over by Justice Ghosh.
The case was brought to the court’s attention on May 13 by Gangopadhyay’s counsel, advocate Rajdeep Majumdar, who claimed that the FIR was politically motivated to prevent Gangopadhyay from campaigning in the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha elections. In addition to seeking the quashing of the FIR, the plea also requested the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the matter.
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Advocates Rajdeep Mazumder, Billawadal Bhattacharyya, Moyukh Mukherjee, Pritam Roy, Anish Kr. Mukherjee, S Bhattacharjee, Sagnika Banerjee, Aishwaryya Bazaz, and Triparna Roy appeared on behalf of the petitioner, while Advocate General Kishore Dutta and Senior Standing Counsel Amitesh Banerjee, along with Advocates Sirsanya Bandopadhyay, Rudrajit Sarkar, and RK Ganguly, represented the State.
