Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhdyay openly discusses his orders on ABP Ananda

Kolkata: Justice Abhijit Gangopadhdyay of the Calcutta High Court, who has passed several orders directing the CBI to investigate alleged irregularities in the appointment of teaching and non-teaching staff in schools, said he wants to be remembered for some judgements long after he is not there.

In an interview with Bengali news channel ABP Ananda, Justice Gangopadhyay said he has never compromised with corruption.

"I want to pass a few judgements which, long after when I will not be there, will come up before a researcher that there was a judge who did these," he said.

Admitting that he is emotional, he said, "I cannot see tears in the eyes of people." Lamenting that "corruption has become a way of life", he said that it is also being accepted by people.

Justice Gangopadhyay, who was elevated as a judge of the Calcutta High Court in May 2018, has ordered 10 investigations by the CBI in connection with the school jobs scam.

The judge said after finding that there was a delay in CBI probes, he had passed caustic comments against the agency also as he was "not seeing light at the end of the tunnel".

Justice Gangopadhyay said he had ordered formation of a special investigation team (SIT) of the CBI to probe into the cases on the suggestion of former joint director of the agency Upen Biswas, who had led the investigation into the fodder scam cases in Bihar.

Son of a lawyer, Justice Gangopadhyay said he went through a lot of turbulence in life before joining Hazra Law College in Kolkata to study law.

"I joined the course to spend time as I had nothing to do," Justice Gangopadhyay, who had also joined the state civil service for some time, said.

He said that he had not bowed down to pressure during that time also and had left the job to take up teaching law and thereafter started practising in the Calcutta High Court.

The judge, who represented the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) as a lawyer for 10 years, said that it used to be a very good institution.

The alleged irregularities occurred in the appointments given by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education on recommendations by the SSC.

"The experience has helped me a lot and I can get to the depth of cases related to Education Law at the outset," he said.