Abhijit Gangopadhyay to join BJP. A look at the former Calcutta High Court judge's controversies

Former judge of the Calcutta High Court, Abhijit Gangopadhyay, announced on March 5 that he will likely join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by March 7, ahead of Lok Sabha 2024 polls.

, who was scheduled to retire in August 2024, is all set to create history by becoming the first High Court judge in recent memory to resign and join a political party. He sent his resignation letter to President Droupadi Murmu, with copies to the and the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, TS Sivagnanam, on Tuesday morning.

There had been speculations that Gangopadhyay may contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls from Tamluk constituency on a BJP ticket. The constituency has been a bastion of the ruling , the party that has held it since the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.

Justice Gangopadhyay has been involved in many controversies during his tenure at the Calcutta High Court since May 2018. He defied orders of larger Benches, had run-ins with lawyers and the ruling Trinamool Congress party in West Bengal, had a dispute with a fellow judge at the High Court and also gave an interview to a on a case he was hearing. His rulings on education-related issues in the Mamata Banerjee-ruled state stirred political debates, too.

Since 2022, he has passed many orders directing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and ED) to investigate the alleged school jobs scam in West Bengal. Justice Gangopadhyay terminated more than 32,000 teacher appointments in one of his orders.

Last year, Justice Gangopadhyay was also pulled by the Supreme Court for giving an interview on a scam while hearing the case related to it. He had given an interview to a local Bengali news channel and talked about the role of TMC leader while he was dealing with a batch of