Calcutta, Aug. 5: Calcutta High Court Chief Justice Manjula Chellur today entered the courtroom of Justice Girish Gupta, waved and said: "You should now carry on, brother."
The gesture ended a two-week stalemate over the boycott of Justice Gupta by the Bar Association, the all-powerful organisation of lawyers. The association had been boycotting the judge since July 22, accusing him of misbehaving with a senior advocate.
Around noon today, Chief Justice Chellur summoned advocate-general Jayanta Mitra and some other senior lawyers to her chamber and went with them to courtroom No. 4, where Justice Gupta was sitting with his division bench co-judge, Justice S.S. Sadhu.
Some young lawyers, standing outside the courtroom and preventing litigants and lawyers from entering, were taken by surprise and allowed the chief justice and the senior lawyers to pass.
Justice Chellur waved at Justice Gupta, who was hearing the submissions of the Bar Association on the boycott, and said: "You should now carry on, brother."
Justice Gupta replied: "Okay." The chief justice left through the door used by judges.
Advocate-general Mitra told Justice Gupta: "Now you can start hearing cases."
Justice Gupta instructed the court officer to call out the list of cases and heard a few in the presence of several lawyers.
Bar Association vice-president Pratik Prakash Banerjee said the boycott was "virtually withdrawn" today. "However, a general body meeting of the Bar Association is needed to formally withdraw the boycott. Since the decision to boycott the judge was taken in a general body meeting on July 22, it has to be withdrawn by adopting a resolution in another general body meeting."
Banerjee said the meeting would be held soon.
"In my five-decade career, I have never seen a chief justice leaving his or her chamber and walking to a judge's courtroom to end a boycott by lawyers," said Gitanath Ganguli, a senior lawyer of Calcutta High Court.
Earlier today, Bar Association president R.N. Das and Bar Library Club secretary Pramit Roy appeared in the courtroom of Justice Gupta in response to an order. The judge had asked the association to explain under which law the boycott was being enforced.
Justice Gupta had also asked how many lawyers had lodged a complaint against him, how many members were present at the meeting of the association that decided on the boycott, the text of the resolution and the names of the lawyers preventing investigating officers and litigants from entering his court.
In reply, Das said: "It is not possible for me to name the persons who are preventing others to come to this court."
Justice Gupta said: "We are all members of the legal profession. If any lawyer does not like my face, he cannot simply go out of the room, shout slogans and prevent willing lawyers from appearing before this court."
"If anybody has any problem with me, he can move the Supreme Court. The apex court can remove me. But he cannot tell other lawyers to boycott me."
Bar Library Club secretary Roy suggested that there could be an "amicable settlement".
Justice Gupta said: "But what is the amicable settlement. Tell me."
It was at this moment that Chief Justice Chellur entered.
