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Synopsis

Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud on Monday during the hearing in a plea against the order of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the Calcutta High Court directing the CBI and the ED to question TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee in the Primary Teachers' Recruitment scam case, orally stated that judges have no right to give TV interviews on pending matters.

A bench led by the CJI took strong note of the purported interview given to a news channel about the case by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who had issued at least ten orders directing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate irregularities in West Bengal School Service Commission recruitment scam.

The court requested a report within four days from the Registrar General of the Calcutta High Court on whether Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay gave an interview to the news channel ABP Ananda about the West Bengal job scam issue.

Allegedly, in an interview to ABP Ananda aired last September, Justice Gangopdhyay had justified his orders for a CBI probe, saying there appeared “rampant corruption” in the teachers’ recruitment process.

According to a report by NDTV, the CJI orally observed "Judges have no business conducting interviews on pending cases. And if they do, they will be unable to hear the case. They have no right to be present during the hearings. We are absolutely clear on that".

In the previous hearing, the bench had also proceeded to stay the Calcutta High Court's April 13 order directing the West Bengal Police not to lodge any FIR against CBI and Enforcement Directorate officers who are investigating the scam.

TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee presented the TV interview and its transcript to the Supreme Court bench on Monday.

Moreover, Senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Gopal Sankaranarayanan also objected that a sitting judge cannot give an interview about a case that is currently before him and then go on to deliver an order against a political figure who he also criticised in the interview. 

The bench initially stated that it may not be appropriate for the Supreme Court to take note of some utterances made by a judge during proceedings before his court, but after Singhvi drew the CJI's attention to the TV interview and the transcript, the bench was inclined to pursue the matter.

The CJI said, “I just want to say that judges have no business granting interviews on matters which are pending. If he said that about the petitioner, he has no business participating in the proceedings. The question is whether a judge who has made statements like these about a political personality - should be allowed to participate in the hearings. There has to be some process.”