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Justice Kaushik Chanda has been appointed as a permanent judge of Calcutta High Court by the Supreme Court Collegium. The decision was taken by the Apex Court in its collegium meeting held on Aug 17.

Justice Chanda, was previously an additional judge in the High Court. Earlier in a letter to the Secretary of the Acting Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee had “conveyed her objections and reservations” about Justice Chanda’s confirmation as permanent judge. 

This year in June, when the Chief Minister’s petition challenging the election of Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Suvendhu Adhikari from Nandigram in the assembly election was placed before Justice Chanda, Banerjee wrote a letter to the High Court seeking recusal of Justice Chanda on alleged likelihood of "bias".

The letter said that Justice Chanda was an active member of the BJP before he became a judge.

"My client has filed the election petition challenging the election of Suvendu Adhikari, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The adjudication of election petition shall also have political ramifications. My client has been made aware that Justice Chanda was an active member of the BJP. Thus, in the event the Hon'ble judge takes up the election petition, there will be reasonable apprehension in my client's mind of bias on the part of the Hon'ble judge in favour of the Respondent and/ or against my client,"  - Banerjee's letter stated.

Senior Advocate AM Singhvi appearing for Banerjee before the Calcutta High Court had argued that if Justice Chanda chose not to recuse himself in light of the social media mandate by various All India Trinamool Congress leaders, he may attract more criticism. Singhvi further delved into the instances of the Judge appearing for BJP when he was a lawyer.

To this, Justice Chanda replied “You are a Congress man, Advocate Mookherjee is from BJP &  you are appearing for an AITC official.”

While reserving order, Justice Chanda had said  that if he were to recuse himself, it will mean that he has given in to “media trial”, even though he himself has been deciding on petitions concerning the menace of media trials.

Subsequently, Justice Chanda in order to "avoid political misinterpretation"  recused from hearing Mamata Banerjee’s election petition against Suvendhu Adhikari by choice. 

However, he imposed a cost of Rs 5,00,000 on the petition for orchestrating circumstances to compel him to recuse and for trying to portray the judiciary in a bad light.

Justice Chanda was born on Jan 4, 1974. He graduated from Calcutta University in Law in 1997. He was enrolled as an Advocate on Dec 18,1998 and  designated as Senior Advocate on Jun 10, 2014.

Justice Chanda was appointed as the Additional Solicitor General of India on Apr 09, 2015 and held the said position till September, 2019.

Justice Chanda was elevated as an Additional Judge of the Calcutta High Court on Oct 01, 2019.

Edited by Shreya Agarwal