The Supreme Court In the matter of Abhishek Banerjee v/s  Soumen Nandy said that judges have no right to give TV interviews on pending matters.

The Supreme Court commented this while hearing a plea that challenged the order passed by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of Calcutta High Court wherein he had directed the CBI and the enforcement directorate to question TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

The advocates appearing for the petitioner requested the court to take into account the judge’s interview with ABP Ananda wherein he allegedly spoke against the petitioner.

The petitioner stated that the single judge did not clarify or revoke the statement.

The petitioner also annexed a translated transcript of the interview

Chief Justice of India  DY Chandrachud asked for clarification on whether these statements were made by the single judge or not and ordered the registrar general of the High Court to clarify whether the judge had been interviewed by Mr. Suman and to file the affidavit by Friday.

The Supreme Court directed to put a stay on all actions against the petitioner in connection with the directions passed by Justice Gangopadhyay.

Justice DY Chandrachud without getting into the merits of the case remarked that it is important to know whether Justice Gangopadhyay had given this interview or not and said that judges have no business granting interviews on matters which are pending and if he has spoken about the petitioner in the interview then he has no business participating in the proceedings because then the question arises that whether a judge who made these statements about a political personality should be allowed to participate in the hearings.