Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, April 17: Within hours of the Supreme Court staying the Calcutta High Court’s order allowing the Central Bureau of Investigation to question the Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee in connection with the alleged teachers’ recruitment scam, the CBI issued him summons on Monday for questioning him on Tuesday.
Banerjee, the nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, got the CBI summons just hours after the Supreme Court paused the investigation against him for alleged corruption in recruiting teachers. “The CBI is trying to harass us by issuing summons for questioning despite the Supreme Court’s order,” Mr Banerjee said.
“In its desperation to ‘harass’ and ‘target’ me, BJP exposes CBI and ED to contempt of court. The SC (Supreme Court) stayed the Calcutta HC (high court) order in the morning that granted permission to the central agencies to summon me. Yet, the ‘summon’ was hand-delivered today at 1.45 pm. Grave State of affairs,” Banerjee tweeted, along with a copy of the summons. The CBI summons was based on the Calcutta High Court’s order though it was stayed by the SC in the morning.
A Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala, which decided to hear the plea on April 24, stayed the direction of a single judge bench of the high court that TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee and Kuntal Ghosh, an accused in the case, can be questioned by the ED and the CBI, and such “interrogation should be made soon.”
“The petition was in the mentioning list. AM Singhvi has adverted to the contents of the order and the directions passed by which the ED and CBI have been directed to file a report with respect to a probe in connection with a public speech by Abhishek Banerjee. List on April 24, 2023. Till the next date of listing, there shall be stay on all action against petitioner in relation to the directions passed in impugned order,” the Supreme Court ordered.
The Calcutta High Court on April 13 had passed a slew of directions, asking the police not to lodge FIRs on complaints against officers of the CBI or the ED who are investigating the educational recruitment scam of the West Bengal Central School Service Commission and the West Bengal Board of Primary Education without its permission.
It had asked the central agencies to probe the role of state TMC leaders in the case. Senior advocate AM Singhvi, appearing for the TMC leaders, had sought an urgent hearing on the plea challenging the high court order in the case. The high court was hearing a petition related to alleged irregularities in recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff in West Bengal government-sponsored and aided schools. The high court had said Ghosh could be questioned soon by the central agencies along with Banerjee.
The Calcutta High Court on April 13 had passed a slew of directions, asking the police not to lodge FIRs on complaints against officers of the CBI or the ED who are investigating the educational recruitment scam of the West Bengal Central School Service Commission and the West Bengal Board of Primary Education without its permission. It had asked the central agencies to probe the role of state TMC leaders in the case.
Senior advocate AM Singhvi, appearing for the TMC leaders, had sought an urgent hearing on the plea challenging the high court order in the case. The high court was hearing a petition related to alleged irregularities in recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff in West Bengal government-sponsored and aided schools. The high court had said Ghosh could be questioned soon by the central agencies along with Banerjee.
The CBI investigation came after some candidates who said they were denied jobs despite qualifying for the Teachers’ Eligibility Test in 2014 sought relief. The Calcutta High Court had also noted irregularities in appointments of teachers by the West Bengal Board of Primary Education.
A series of exchange of words between Calcutta High Court Justice Abhijit Ganguly and the ruling TMC leaders is reflective of the continuing tension between the state government and judiciary in the state. In the latest instance, Justice Ganguly observed last week that the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate could question Abhishek Banerjee if necessary, in reference to arrested TMC youth leader Kuntal Ghosh’s allegations that central investigative agencies were pressuring him to name Abhishek in corruption cases. TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh shot back: “[Justice Ganguly should] leave the chair and directly enter politics… Are you in charge of the investigation? You are equally affecting the investigation, introducing bias in it. Ghosh also accused Justice Ganguly of “tarnishing Abhishek with the support of opposition parties Congress, CPI(M) and BJP”.
Earlier, Justice Ganguly, who ordered the CBI probe into alleged irregularities in the appointment of teachers and non-teaching staff to government schools of the state, leading to several TMC leaders’ arrests, had taken on Abhishek over his comments against the judiciary. Speaking to a local vernacular television news channel he had said he was in favour of “strictest action” against anyone “who points a finger at the judiciary, otherwise people will lose faith in the justice system.” He said he favoured issuing a ruling against him and summoning him, but a division bench felt differently. If Abhishek couldn’t prove the charges he made against judges of acting at the behest of the BJP, the judge had said, “he should be jailed for three months for lying.” “Later, he may get me killed, but that doesn’t bother me.”
Mamata herself has often targeted the judiciary in the context of the school recruitment scam probe. At a recent programme, she spoke of people who had lost their jobs consequent to the probe and urged the judiciary “not to put their families in financial difficulties”, mentioning two suicides reportedly linked to the same. The CM was speaking at a programme at Alipore Judges’ Court.
On December 15 last year, Kunal Ghosh had launched a scathing attack on Justice Rajashekhar Mantha after he ordered that no FIR can be filed against the BJP’s Leader of Opposition (LoP), Suvendu Adhikari, without the High Court’s permission.
A senior TMC leader expressed discomfort within the party over these direct attacks on the judiciary. “It is true that in the last year, every judicial order has gone against us. But that does not mean we attack the judiciary. It is tarnishing our image.”