The fierce political dogfight between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the Opposition parties reached the precincts of Calcutta High Court with the pro-TMC lawyers continuing to boycott the court of Justice Rajashekhar Mantha for the second day on Tuesday even as the Judge went on to initiate suo motu proceeding of criminal contempt against the unruly lawyers who raised slogans and jammed the entrance of the court room preventing rival faction of advocates to conduct their business.
A number of ruling party leaders had been publicly questioning the role of a set of High Court Judges including Justice Mantha who had been hearing cases related to TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and Justice Abhijit Ganguly who had ordered CBI and ED investigations into teachers’ recruitment scams.
The Bengal ruling outfit had been apparently angry with the Judge while hearing a money laundering case had passed some orders that allegedly went against Maneka Gambhir the sister-in-law of Abhishek Banerjee. The Judge had also stayed police action on 26 FIRs registered against Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari.
Things reached a flashpoint when scores of posters depicting the Judge in question were pasted inside the court premises and also outside his house. The posters depicted the Judge and a couple of Union ministers in the same frame and described him as a “disgrace in the name of judiciary.”
“Those unruly advocates have also pasted posters with Hon’ble Judge’s photographs in the area of High Court at Calcutta, which is not only contemptuous as such we request Your Lordship to suo motu issue a rule of criminal contempt against those unruly advocates and the Elected members of Bar Association” a letter from a rival section of Bar Association wrote to Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava. If found guilty of contempt, the erring lawyers could face suspension or even bigger punishment.