Supreme Court Transfers Caste Certificate Scam Cases In West Bengal MBBS Admissions To Itself
The Supreme Court today transferred to itself pleas related to a tussle between two benches of the Calcutta High Court over the issue of a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in issuance of caste certificates to candidates aspiring for reserved category seats.
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud said it has decided to transfer all the cases related to the issue to itself and directed completion of pleadings in a period of three weeks.
"We will list the pleas exactly after three weeks," said the bench which also comprised Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice B R Gavai, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Aniruddha Bose.
The Apex Court bench had earlier sat on a holiday on January 27 to address the dispute where a defiant judge overruled an order of a division bench that had quashed his direction for a CBI probe and asked the central agency to go ahead with the investigation.
In a special hearing the SC had stayed all the proceedings before the division bench and the single judge of the Calcutta High Court in the matter where it took suo moto cognizance of an order passed by a single bench of the Calcutta High Court terming an order of the division bench as "illegal".
The case pertained to alleged irregularities in the admission of MBBS candidates in state-run medical colleges and hospitals in West Bengal. Pertinently, a division bench of the High Court comprising Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Uday Kumar had stayed a single bench's order directing a CBI probe into the matter.
However, on Thursday, the single-judge bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay termed the order passed by the division bench as wholly illegal and that it has to be ignored considering the political bias of the bench hearing the matter.
With PTI Inputs