SSC case judgement: Contempt plea against Mamata withdrawn

Kolkata: The Supreme Court has reportedly recorded the withdrawal of a petition that sought criminal contempt proceedings against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her remarks on the court’s ruling in the teachers’ recruitment scam case.

The move came after Attorney General for India R Venkataramani declined to give the statutory consent required to initiate such proceedings.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai, and also comprising Justices K Vinod Chandran and NV Anjaria, took note of the submission made by the counsel for the petitioner, Aatmadeep, a public charitable trust. The counsel informed the bench that consent had been sought from the Attorney General but was not granted. “We have received instructions to withdraw the petition, as the Attorney General has not given consent,” he said.

The bench then permitted withdrawal of the plea. Earlier, during a previous hearing, senior advocate Maninder Singh representing Aatmadeep had asked the court to defer the matter while the request for consent was pending before the Attorney General.

The Chief Justice had also observed in the earlier proceedings that political disagreements should not spill into the courtroom, stressing that judicial forums should not become arenas for political confrontation.

The petition had alleged that the Chief Minister made objectionable remarks concerning the Supreme Court’s judgment that upheld the Calcutta High Court’s decision striking down about 25,000 appointments of teachers and non-teaching staff made by the West Bengal School Service Commission in 2016.

In April this year, the bench of then Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar had affirmed the High Court’s conclusion that the recruitment exercise was vitiated by fraud and “tainted beyond repair”, leading to cancellation of all

such appointments.