West Bengal fake caste certificate matter: Supreme Court stays proceedings in Calcutta High Court, issues notice

New Delhi [India], January 27 (ANI): In a special sitting on Saturday, the Supreme Court stayed the proceedings before the Calcutta High Court in connection with the West Bengal fake certificate matter and issued notice to the state government and others.

A five-judge bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud heard the matter today and said “We have taken charge now.”

The apex court has listed the matter for January 29 for further hearing.

The top court has taken suo moto cognisance after controversy arose out of various contrary orders passed by the single-judge bench and division bench of the Calcutta High Court.

The top court issued notice to the West Bengal Government and the original petitioner in the matter before the High Court. It stayed the proceedings before the Calcutta High Court in connection with the matter.

The court also stayed single-judge bench Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay’s order directing a CBI probe into the West Bengal fake certificate matter.

Besides CJI Chandrachud, other judges on the bench were justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, Surya Kant and Aniruddha Bose.

The case title “In Re: Orders of Calcutta High Court dated 24.01.2024 AND 25.01.2024 and Ancillary Issues,” arose out of some orders passed by Calcutta High Court’s single judge bench and division bench disagreeing with each other.

Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay in his order has accused Justice Soumen Sen, who is heading the division bench, of acting for a political party in the WB state”.

The Supreme Court today said, “Pending further order, there shall be a stay of all proceedings before the High Court of Calcutta.

“The implementation of the direction issued by the single judge on 24 January 2024 and 25 January 2024 shall in consequence remain stay,” the top court said.

The matter arises out of a petition in HC whereby it was alleged that rampantly issuing

fake caste certificates to many persons to ease their admission to medical courses.

A single judge of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay had directed to ignore Calcutta HC’s division bench order and asked the CBI to begin its probe into the fake caste certificate matter.

Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay said that Justice Sen is acting clearly for some political party in the WB State and, therefore, the orders passed by the bench led by Justice Sen are required to be relooked if the Supreme Court thinks so.

Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay said that Justice Sen has done it to save some political party in power and his (Justice Sen) actions are clearly tantamount to misconduct.

The single judge bench of Justice Gangopadhyay on January 24 asked the West Bengal Police to hand over documents related to the matter to the CBI.

After some time, the matter was mentioned before a division bench of Justice Sen and Uday Kumar, which stayed the single judge’s order.

The single judge bench of Justice Gangopadhyay again took up the matter on and asked the WB police to give paper to CBI. The division bench on Thursday did not agree with the single-judge bench decision.

The single judge again heard the matter on January 25 and passed a certain remark against Justice Sen.