Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay recently resigned as a judge of the Calcutta High Court and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He said that he was approached by the BJP, and he also approached the BJP, during his tenure as judge. He declared that henceforth, he will be a “party soldier”.
While he was judge, Mr. Gangopadhyay was often in the news for the wrong reasons. He allegedly gave an interview to a TV channel criticising the West Bengal government and speaking about the school job-for-bribe case. He created controversy by defying an order of a division bench. Sometimes he had run-ins with lawyers and even fellow judges. While dealing with one of the cases pertaining to Mr. Gangopadhyay’s conduct, a bench of Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice P.S. Narasimha rightly said that judges have no business giving TV interviews on pending matters. The Chief Minister criticised Mr. Gangopadhyay after his resignation saying his judgments will always remain questionable.
Former Union Minister Arun Jaitley had once advocated a cooling off period for judges saying “pre-retirement judgments are influenced by a desire for a post-retirement job”. When confronted with this suggestion, Mr. Gangopadhyay retorted that there is no rule to this effect. He added that he “never gave any political judgment which was politically biased”.
