These lawyers blocked the entry point of the bench and protested. As a result, the functioning at Justice Mantha’s bench came to a standstill in the morning. At the same time, on Monday morning, several posters slamming Justice Mantha were pasted on the walls of the latter’s residence and adjacent places at Jodhpur Park in South Kolkata.
In the posters, it was alleged that Justice Mantha was acting in a biased manner in favour of Suvendu Adhikari.
Justice Mantha was also slammed for his recent verdict of removing the shield of cohesive action by Enforcement Directorate (ED) against Maneka Gambhir, the sister-in-law of Trinamool Congress’s national general secretary and party MP, Abhishek Banerjee in the posters.
The local security personnel said that some people might have pasted these posters late Sunday night.
To recall, on December 15, Trinamool Congress’s state general secretary and the party’s spokesman in Kolkata Kunal Ghosh launched a scathing attack against Justice Mantha after the latter gave protection to the Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari against FIRs.
Ghosh also alleged that because of the protection provided by Justice Mantha, the leader of the opposition has become reckless. And legal sections of the state started linking Ghosh’s salvos on that day, the boycott of Justice Mantha’s bench on Monday morning and the recovery of posters at his residence.
Meanwhile, the deputy solicitor general Billwadal Bhattacharya sought the attention of the Calcutta High Court’s Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava in the matter of the boycott of the bench of Justice Mantha.
The event of Trinamool Congress- supporting lawyers blocking the entry of Justice Mantha’s bench and resisting other lawyers from entering there was also criticised by senior advocate of the Calcutta High Court and CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member, Bikash Bhattacharya.
Reacting to the development Justice Srivastava expressed concern over the development. “This is not done. I will summon the bar association president. I am looking into the matter. How can the bench of a justice be boycotted?” Justice Srivastava questioned.
IANS