‘Targeting judges by name creates a chilling effect, discouraging impartial rulings,’ said a senior advocate from the Calcutta High Court.
KOLKATA: With the Mamata Banerjee government facing setback after setback before the Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court of India, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) party has trained its guns on the judges who passed the verdicts and orders. Recently, the TMC has targeted Calcutta High Court Justices Amrita Sinha, Rajasekhar Mantha, and Debangshu Basak for issuing rulings perceived as unfavourable to the party’s interests. The criticism has come in the form of public statements and protests.
TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh has criticised the judges by name, a practice that has few parallels in recent memory. “Targeting judges by name creates a chilling effect, discouraging impartial rulings,” said a senior advocate from the Calcutta High Court, speaking anonymously. Justice Sinha has long been a focal point of TMC’s ire due to her stringent orders in high-profile cases involving the party. She has been hearing matters related to the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment scam, including cases implicating TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee. She imposed a Rs 25 lakh fine on Banerjee, prompting accusations of bias from TMC leaders, including Banerjee himself, who moved the Supreme Court to request that cases involving him not be heard by Sinha.
This week, she issued an interim stay prohibiting the State Government’s financial relief scheme for nonteaching staff who lost jobs after a Supreme Court order, which TMC labelled a move by “anti-Bengal” forces. The 26,000 teachers and non-teaching staff lost their jobs after a Supreme Court judgment in a case in which the former TMC number two and Education Minister Partha Chatterjee and a host of party leaders are behind bars for corruption. “Once the Supreme Court decided the issue of illegal appointment conclusively and opined that the appointments were the result of fraud, no person who was the beneficiary of a fraudulent act of the statutory authority ought to be provided any support, that too, from the public exchequer,” Justice Sinha stated in her order.
In 2023, Justice Sinha’s husband, Pratap Chandra Dey, was summoned for questioning by the CID, and his allegations triggered a political row. “I was treated like a criminal, accused of some heinous crime. I was questioned by more than one officer, and questions were asked only about my wife… The video [camera] was switched on and off at their convenience. The torture and harassment went on for three and a half hours. I was permitted to leave at about 3:30 pm,” Dey, a lawyer, wrote in a letter addressed to the president of the Metropolitan Magistrate Court Bar Association. The letter added that a notice under Section 160 of the CrPC was issued directing him to appear at the office of the Economic Offences Wing, CID, West Bengal.
The CID accused Dey of using his influence as the spouse of a sitting High Court judge to favour his client. Justice r Mantha is another judge who faced TMC’s brickbats. This week, his bench stayed the West Bengal government’s new OBC list, citing concerns over its constitutionality, as data showed that over 86% of newly added groups belonged to the Muslim community, raising questions about religious bias for electoral gain. In 2023, Mantha faced TMC’s ire after he restrained West Bengal police from investigating complaints against BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, a decision TMC criticised as favouring the Opposition. In December 2022, Mantha ordered the stay of 17 FIRs against Adhikari and required High Court approval for new FIRs, which he deemed politically motivated by the State police.
Following this, a section of lawyers held protests outside his courtroom. Several posters targeting the judge appeared in the Calcutta High Court premises and near the judge’s residence in South Kolkata. Ghosh said, “There is a clear pattern in the manner in which these judges – specifically Justices Sinha, Mantha, and Basak – have passed orders. The general public is questioning their impartiality and saying that they are anti-Bengal.” Ghosh maintains that the party’s criticism is a legitimate exercise of free speech and not an attack on the judiciary. He argued that questioning judicial decisions is necessary when rulings appear to favour the BJP or disrupt the state’s governance.
Earlier, the party targeted former Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who faced similar criticism before joining the BJP. “It was because of the Trinamool’s challenge that I decided to quit the judiciary and join active politics,” the former judge told The Sunday Guardian while campaigning in the last Lok Sabha elections for Tamluk constituency, which he won. Justice Basak was part of a High Court bench that ordered the sacking of 26,000 teachers and non-teaching staff, stating that corruption in their appointment process was so endemic that it was “impossible to separate the grain from the chaff.” BJP leader Amit Malviya accused the TMC of seeking a “committed judiciary” to suppress dissent, citing the protests as evidence of TMC’s intolerance for judicial scrutiny.
CPI(M) leaders echoed similar sentiments, calling for institutional safeguards to protect judges. Retired IAS officer and former TMC Rajya Sabha MP Jawhar Sircar said, “While TMC frames its rhetoric as democratic critique, the naming of judges and associated protests amount to intimidation and threaten judicial independence. As West Bengal’s political landscape remains polarised, the judiciary’s role as a check on power needs safeguards to protect its autonomy.”
“The TMC’s actions show a disregard for democratic institutions. However, they cannot bully the judiciary into submission,” said Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, advocate and CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP, who has played a pivotal role in all the cases against the TMC and the Bengal government.