March 13: On a day the Trinamul Congress deputed a low-profile leader to the Prime Minister's dinner and tested the Centre's nerves on the President's speech, Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was in Nagpur attending the wedding of the daughter of Calcutta High Court Chief Justice J.N. Patel. "I am going to Nagpur. I had given my word long back that I would be there to attend the event. After my return, I will go to Nandigram tomorrow," Mamata said at Writers' Buildings, minutes before leaving for the airport. Being a personal visit, Mamata left for Nagpur on a private chartered aircraft — a nine-seater Falcon 2000 LX — accompanied by Union minister of state for shipping Mukul Roy. Mamata met the newlyweds at a hotel in the heart of Nagpur. There is nothing wrong in a chief minister extending social courtesies and attending a wedding. But it is not common for a chief minister to fly across states to attend a family event of a serving chief justice who can hear cases involving the government. Chief Justice Patel is at present hearing a number of cases against the state government headed by Mamata. Some luminaries — not all preferred to be named, citing the sensitive nature of the subject — have said it is desirable to let an invisible screen stand between the judiciary and the other pillars. They referred to the impeccable standards set by a former Supreme Court judge from Calcutta, who was so particular about staying "aloof" from social gatherings during her adjudicating career that she declined even invitations to her own relatives' weddings. The current Chief Justice of India, S.H. Kapadia, is also known for avoiding social gatherings. Sources in the Calcutta chief justice's office said that in recent years, no chief justice has invited the chief minister to their children's wedding. "When Justice S.S. Nijjar was chief justice of Calcutta High Court, his daughter got married in Punjab in 2007 but then chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was not invited to the wedding," an official said. "It is another matter that Bhattacharjee would perhaps not have travelled to Punjab to attend the event." However, some veteran lawyers who spoke on record said they found nothing improper in a chief minister extending social courtesies. "There is no infirmity in the CM attending in her personal capacity the wedding of the daughter of the CJ of the state…. I am assuming that the CM had a good reason at a personal level to do so. Equally, if the CJ invites a CM to attend a wedding, it is not ex facie wrong," lawyer Rajeev Dhawan said. "The CM cannot be rude in declining such an invitation." An informal code of conduct (it has no statutory backing) adopted by the Supreme Court in 1997 says that "a judge should practise a degree of aloofness consistent with the dignity of his office". The 16-point code concludes by saying "every judge must at all times be conscious that he is under the public gaze and there should be no act or omission by him which is unbecoming of the high office he occupies and the public esteem in which that office is held". In a recent judgment, the Supreme Court had rejected the suggestion that constitutional functionaries could not meet. The court was adjudicating on a PIL which had alleged that certain administrative changes were made in the classification of cases in a high court that suited then chief minister Mayawati after a meeting with the then Chief Justice F.I. Rebello. In another instance, former Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan had refused pleas of Gujarat riot victims and shared a dais with chief minister Narendra Modi. They had objected to the chief justice meeting the chief minister while the riot cases were pending before the top court. But Subrata Mukhopadhyay, a lawyer practising in Calcutta High Court and the working president of the CPM-affiliated Democratic Lawyers Association's high court unit, said that Mamata's trip to Nagpur was "inappropriate". "It is extremely inappropriate of the chief minister to do so," Mukhopadhyay said. "Chief Justice Patel is hearing a number of important cases against the government and the visit of Mamata Banerjee to Nagpur can justifiably be misinterpreted. It would send a wrong message to the people of the state." Among the cases that the chief justice is hearing are a public interest petition demanding a CBI inquiry into the murder of two CPM leaders in Burdwan, the petition against the dissolution of police unions by the state government and a case against the government for announcing a compensation of Rs 2 lakh each for the hooch victims of Mograhat. Laxmi Chandra Sil, the secretary to Chief Justice Patel, said: "The chief minister appears to be reciprocating a courtesy. When Mamata Banerjee's mother passed away, the chief justice was out of town. But when he returned a few days later, he visited her at her Harish Chatterjee residence to pay his condolences." Trinamul leaders sought to justify Mamata's trip to Nagpur by saying she liked to maintain social relations. Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Trinamul MP, said: "If anyone tries to criticise the chief minister for visiting Nagpur to attend the wedding of the chief justice's daughter, I would call it unfair. For, Mamata Banerjee is merely being courteous by doing so." Ever since becoming chief minister, Mamata has occasionally been dropping by at the residence of the chief justice on her way back home from Writers' Buildings. These visits have been described by the state government as "courtesy calls". Such "courtesy calls" by chief ministers were unheard of during the Left regime. Both Jyoti Basu and Bhattacharjee would stick to convention by visiting the chief justice once after being sworn in as chief minister. Some lawyers recalled that when Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharjee was a judge in Calcutta High Court — he is now the acting Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court — he would never attend any social event. "Every time somebody would go to invite him to a social function, Justice Bhattacharjee would decline politely, citing his inability to attend since he was a high court judge," a lawyer recalled. Justice Ruma Pal, a judge first in Calcutta High Court and then in the Supreme Court, is a former judge known for such a regimen. Former Calcutta mayor and CPM leader Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya said: "Even if everything is to be accepted, it does seem very, very inappropriate that a chief minister has to travel to another state to attend the wedding of the daughter of her state's chief justice." | 
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