Justice Harish Tandon, on Monday, chose to recuse from hearing 10 cases relating to recruitment irregularities by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC).
A division bench of Justice Harish Tandon and Justice Rabindranath Samanta was supposed to hear those cases relating to irregularities in the recruitment of non-teaching staff under Group C and Group D and teaching staff for ninth and tenth standards for sponsored schools under the West Bengal Board of Secondary Examination (WBBSE).
However, on Monday, Justice Tandon expressed his desire to recuse from hearing these ten cases. However, Justice Tandon did not cite any specific reason behind his decision. According to him, the decision to recuse was prompted by personal grounds.
On March 25 the Calcutta High Court’s single-judge bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay ordered WBSSC’s former advisor, S.P. Sinha to file an affidavit to the court disclosing the details of his assets. Sinha appealed to the division bench of Justice Harish Tandon and Justice Rabindranath Samanta against the single-judge bench order. The said division bench, although upheld the single-judge bench order, directed Sinha to file the same affidavit in a sealed envelope.
Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay took exception to this observation of the division bench and complained that in a way the hands of the single bench had been tied. “This is – I am sorry to say – the highest degree of double standard expressed by the appeal court for the reason known to it. But to maintain judicial discipline, I have to accept such an order,” Justice Gangopadhyay observed.
Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay also raised questions on how an affidavit filed in a sealed envelope can be dealt with at the time of the final decision. And after that on Monday, Justice Tandon chose to recuse from hearing all the cases pertaining to the WBSSC recruitment irregularities.
Meanwhile, the Calcutta High Court, on Monday, ordered S. Acharya and P.K. Bandopadhyay, two members of the WBSSC- to appoint an advisory committee to be present at the office of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Kolkata by 3 p.m. on Monday only.
