SC to hold spl sitting today over conflict between Cal HC benches

The Supreme Court on Friday took note of an unprecedented face-off between two judges of the Calcutta high court and set up a five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud that will take up the case in a special sitting on Saturday.

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The top court's decision to take suo motu (on its own) cognisance came after two days of rare chaos in the constitutional court in Kolkata that left the West Bengal government and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a tizzy and also sparked a controversy after a judge hurled allegations of political influence at another judge.

A notice issued by the Supreme Court on Friday said that CJI Chandrachud and the four most senior judges of the top court-justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, Surya Kant and Aniruddha Bosewill hold a special sitting on Saturday at 10.30am. The suo motu case was titled: "In Re: Orders of Calcutta high court dated 24.01.2024 and 25.01.2024 and ancillary issues."

On Wednesday and Thursday, two benches of the high court passed contradictory orders on a petition alleging corruption in admission of students at medical colleges, with the larger bench on Thursday finally declaring the single judge's orders void ab initio (legally void from the start) and quashing a first information report (FIR) that CBI had lodged as per the single judge's directive.

Moreover, an order passed by justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay directly targeted the judge heading the division bench, justice Soumen Sen, and alleged that the latter was working at the behest of political parties. "...Justice Sen is acting clearly for some political party in this state and, therefore, the orders passed in the matters involving state, are required to be relooked if the Hon'ble Supreme Court thinks so," justice Gangopadhyay said.

The unprecedented allegations by a sitting judge against another judge of the same high court sparked a controversy.