The Supreme Court on Friday took suo moto cognisance of an order passed by a single bench of the Calcutta High Court that termed as “illegal and ignored” an order of the division bench in a case of alleged irregularities in the admission of MBBS candidates in state-run medical colleges and hospitals in West Bengal.

The division bench of the high court had stayed the single bench’s order for a CBI probe into the matter. A five-judge constitution bench comprising CJI D Y Chandrachud and justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, Surya Kant and Aniruddha Bose is scheduled to hear the matter in a special Saturday hearing.

A single-judge bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay on Thursday held that the order passed by the division bench of Justices Soumen Sen and Uday Kumar as wholly illegal and has to be ignored.

Initially, the single bench had directed a CBI investigation saying it had no faith in the state police on a plea filed by MBBS candidate Itisha Soren alleging irregularities in the admissions of candidates in medical colleges and hospitals under the reservation category.

Later, the West Bengal government moved the division bench of the high court, which then ordered an interim stay on the single-bench order. Subsequently, Justice Gangopadhyay took the matter and asked the Advocate General how without the impugned order an order of stay can be passed by a Division Bench and how an order be passed when there was no memo of appeal.

Court’s verdict

“I have no other option but to ignore the order of the said Division Bench as the order has been passed in continuation of the illegal appeal void ab initio. I have ignored the said illegal order passed by the said Division Bench for the reasons as has been stated above including the ground of ‘interested person’ Hon’ble Justice Soumen Sen… Thus, Justice Sen is acting clearly for some political party in this State and, therefore, the orders passed in the matters involving State, are required to be relooked if the Hon’ble Supreme Court thinks so,” Justice Gangopadhyay said.

He also said what Justice Sen has done is to advance the cause of his personal interest to save some political party in power in this state. Therefore, his actions clearly tantamount to misconduct, he said. “I do not know how a judge, being Justice Soumen Sen, who is under an order of transfer for last more than two years, is acting here as a Judge defying the Supreme Court Collegium’s recommendation (dated September 16, 2021) from this court to Odisha High Court”.

Who are the persons behind him, who are saving him from such transfer whereby the order of the Supreme Court Collegium can be ignored while the other Hon’ble judges have been transferred by the same recommendation? Justice Gangopadhyay said in his order.