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A lawyer from West Bengal, Debapriya Samanta, has sought contempt action against TMC leader Derek O'Brien for his tweets against Justice Kausik Chanda, raising doubts and alleging bias upon the Calcutta High Court by projecting his photographs to cast doubts on the Judge’s independence.

The lawyer has written a letter to the Advocate General Kisohre Datta consent to initiate criminal contempt of court action against Rajya Sabha MP under the Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act.

According to Section 15(1) (b) of the Contempt of Courts Act, consent of Advocate General of the State is mandatory before the High Court can hear a criminal contempt plea filed by a private individual.

15. Cognizance of criminal contempt in other cases.—

(1)In the case of a criminal contempt, other than a contempt referred to in section 14, the Supreme Court or the High Court may take action on its own motion or on a motion made by—

(a) the Advocate-General, or

(b)any other person, with the consent in writing to the Advocate-General,  [or]

(c) in relation to the High Court for the Union territory of Delhi, such Law Officer as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify in this behalf, or any other person, with the consent in writing of such Law Officer.

The Lawyer has stated in his letter that, on 18^th June the MP put out two tweets where he had questioned the allocation of Mamata Banerjee's election case to Justice Kausik Chanda.

In the first tweet he has posted pictures of Justice Chanda participating in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) events when he was a lawyer and in another tweet he mentions details of certain matters in which Justice Chanda had appeared as a lawyer for the BJP.

He asserted that Mr Brien by these tweets only wanted to create and impression in the mind of people that Justice Chandra is prejudiced.

"The contents of both these tweets hence only seeks to bring the Court and the Judge into contempt and lower its authority and hence falls within the scope of Section 2 (c) (1) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971," the letter stated.

He further stated that, both these tweets also make a specific reference to an election petition filed by the CM Mamta Banerjee which is being heard by Justice Chandra pointing out that there can be unfair hearing. This in itself is interference with the conduct of ongoing judicial proceeding.

The letter by Debapriya also pointed out that the Rajya Sabha MP is no ordinary individual , he is a member of the Parliament as well as a celebrity who enjoys a massive following on various social media platform and thus he has the responsibility to be more circumspect with his words and actions.

It must be noted that on Friday, after requesting removal of Calcutta High Court's Acting Chief Justice, TMC workers have sought the removal of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta. 

TMC workers, Derek O'Brien, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray and Mahua Moitra claim that Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and BJPs' Suvendhu Adhikari had a meeting recently with the intention of influencing the outcome of matters in which Adhikari is an accused. The workers have written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking removal of the Learned SG.

Recently, Ashok Kumar Deb, Trinamool Congress MLA & had written to Chief Justice NV Ramana, seeking removal of the current acting Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, Justice Rajesh Bindal.

While the letter was on the letterhead of the “Bar Council of West Bengal” and was undersigned by the TMC MLA, the body of the letter stated that the West Bengal Bar Association is "compelled" to write the instant letter under "urgent and dire circumstance".