Calcutta HC refuses to act on PIL questioning case subject allotment to Justice Amrita Sinha

Kolkata: A vacation division bench of the Calcutta High Court, on Thursday, refused to act on a PIL questioning the case subject allotment for Justice Amrita Sinha.

In the recent overhaul of the “Master of Roster” of Calcutta High Court, Justice Sinha was allotted to hear the cases relating to “police inaction” or ‘police hyper-action”. She was supposed to hear the cases on this allotted case subject after the normal session of the Calcutta High Court resumed after the summer vacation of the court on June 9.

But in the meantime, a PIL was filed at the vacation division bench of Justice Kausik Chanda and Justice Apurba Sinha Ray questioning the neutrality of Justice Sinha in handling such sensitive cases relating to police matters.

The matter came up for hearing at the said vacation division bench on Thursday afternoon. The bench instantly decided not to act on the PIL and referred it back to the regular division bench of Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya, which hears the PIL matters when the court is in regular session.

Legal circles in the state feel such a PIL has been unprecedented where the neutrality of a judge is questioned even before she has started hearing the matters in her newly allotted case subjects.