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Calcutta HC bar union withdraws call to boycott court of justice Gangopadhyay
Earlier, the bar association had written to high court chief justice T S Sivagnanam stating that its members won’t attend the bench of justice Gangopadhyay
Lawyers of the Calcutta high court’s bar association on Thursday withdrew the decision to boycott justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay’s court after the latter visited the body’s office and spoke to the protesting layers, people familiar with the matter said.
Providing details, bar association secretary Biswabrata Basu Mallik said: “Justice Gangopadhyay visited room number 2 of the bar and spoke to us on Thursday afternoon. He said that we should forget everything and work together. The boycott has been withdrawn.”
Earlier, the bar association had written to high court chief justice T S Sivagnanam stating that its members won’t attend the bench of justice Gangopadhyay, claiming that a lawyer was “mistreated” by the judge and sent to civil custody for contempt of court during the hearing of a matter.
Justice Gangopadhyay is presently hearing a series of petitions related to the multi-crore recruitment scam in West Bengal government schools.
The order of the Calcutta high court, in which the single-judge bench sent the lawyer, Prosenjit Mukherjee, to civil imprisonment for three days, triggered protest from a section of the bar association on Monday.
The lawyer was later on released from the custody taken by the sheriff. A division bench of justice Harish Tandon and justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya, which heard the matter beyond judicial hours on Monday, stayed the order of the single bench of justice Gangopadhyay.
Mukherjee was representing the West Bengal Madrasah Service commission in a case relating to appointment of a person on compassionate grounds.
“There was an order of the single bench which was modified by the division bench. When I stated this before the single bench, I was accused of contemptuous act and taken into custody by the sheriff. I was released after an hour. I made an application to the chief justice of the Calcutta high court. A bench was constituted which stayed the singe bench order,” Mukherjee said earlier.
On Thursday Justice Gangopadhyay also spoke to Mukherjee who was present in the room when the judge visited.
