CJ, judge leave courtrooms after protests, placards roil Calcutta HC

KOLKATA: Two judges of Calcutta High Court, including Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava, left their courtrooms for more than an hour on Monday after a section of lawyers blocked the entrance to Justice Rajasekhar Mantha's court, calling him "a disgrace" and demanding immediate change in cases assigned to him.
A few hours before the HC drama started at 10.30am, hundreds of posters - slamming Justice Mantha and asking "Where's the justice, my lord?" - were found pasted on the road leading to his Jodhpur Park residence. At least 30 houses, from the Jodhpur Park Lake to Justice Mantha's residence as well as the entrance to the Jodhpur Park Boys' High School, bore the posters with the words "disgrace" and "shame" in block letters.
The blockade of Justice Mantha's court by the lawyers prompted CJ Shrivastava and four senior judges to call Calcutta HC Bar Association president Arunava Ghosh and send a strong message to lawyers. "The judges held that the blockade constituted criminal contempt," Ghosh told TOI after the meeting. "The association does not endorse such acts. I urged the CJ to take steps as he deemed fit." CJ Shrivastava, while leaving his court to go for the meeting, had set an 11.30am deadline to lawyers to call off the stir.
The lawyers' demand for "a change of determination" to the cases assigned to Justice Mantha was based primarily on his December 8 order that directed police not to register any FIR against assembly opposition leader and BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari without the court's permission; the court also stayed proceedings on all 26 FIRs lodged against Adhikari.
The lawyers questioned the demand for such "blanket protection". TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh, a few days ago, had asked why Adhikari always went to Justice Mantha's court to file lawsuits. "Adhikari never says he is moving Calcutta HC; he always says he is moving Justice Mantha's court. Why is it so? I have full faith in the judiciary," he had said.
Morning walkers in judge’s locality saw posters first
The placards held by lawyers on Monday also questioned why Justice Rajasekhar Mantha had turned down Trinamool national secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s sister-in-law Menka Gambhir’s harassment petition against the Enforcement Directorate. The protesting lawyers closed the doors of courtroom 13 (Justice Mantha’s court) at 10.30am. The situation worsened after the CJ’s one-hour deadline passed and a section of lawyers tried to enter the court at 11.40am, but the protesting lawyers called off their stir around noon, prompting the judges to return to their courtrooms.
Justice Mantha, however, adjourned all the cases listed for Monday. And the protesting lawyers later wrote to CJ Prakash Shrivastava, requesting him to “relieve Justice Mantha from his current determination”. Senior lawyers took exception to such unruly scenes in the high court. Senior advocate Saptangshu Basu called the pasting of posters at a judge’s residence “unbelievable”. Senior advocate Joydeep Kar called the goings-on “unprecedented”. Barrister Siddhartha Mitra agreed that he had never witnessed such scenes in his career. This is not the first time that Calcutta HC has seen such protests by lawyers demanding a change of cases assigned to judges. Lawyers “obstructed” assistant solicitor-general Billwadal Bhattacharya from entering the courtroom on on September 5, 2022, seeking a change in Justice Mantha’s determination.
Two elected executive members of the Calcutta HC Bar Association had written to CJ Shrivastava, seeking a change of determination for Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay and Justice Mantha. Near Justice Mantha’s residence, the posters were first noticed by morning walkers. “It must have happened late at night. We saw the posters when I opened my stall,” a local tea shop owner said. Some cops reached the spot around 10.30am and started removing the posters but were not enough in number to remove all of them. A police picket was placed in the area and a Lake police station patrol van made rounds. Officials said they had registered a complaint themselves and were checking CCTV footage from nearby bank ATMs and homes to identify the miscreants. “We have seen some people in the footage but their faces were covered. We are trying to identify them,” an officer said.