While Retiring, Calcutta HC Judge Says He Has Always Been an RSS Member

'Today, I must unfold my true self. I owe a lot to one organisation [RSS]. I am there from my childhood till I attained my youth.'

The Wire Staff

'Today, I must unfold my true self. I owe a lot to one organisation [RSS]. I am there from my childhood till I attained my youth.'

while retiring calcutta hc judge says he has always been an rss member

Justice Chitta Ranjan Dash. Photo: Screengrab from video

New Delhi: At his retirement event at the Calcutta high court on Monday (May 20), Justice Chitta Ranjan Dash said that he was eager to give more time to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which he had belonged to "since childhood" and continued to be a member of through his judgeship.

"Today, I must unfold my true self. I owe a lot to one organisation. I am there from my childhood till I attained my youth. I have learned to be courageous, upright, have equal view for others, and above all, the sense of patriotism and commitment to the work wherever you work. I must admit here that I was and I am a member of the RSS," he said, according to Bar and Bench.

"I have distanced myself from the organisation (RSS) for about 37 years due to the work I undertook. I never used the membership of my organisation for any advancement of my career, because that is against our principle. I have treated everybody at par, be it a Communist person, be it a BJP or Congress or even TMC person. I do not have any bias against anybody. I do not have any bias against any political personality. All were equal before me. I tried to dispense justice on two principles: one is empathy and second is law can be bent to do justice, but justice cannot be bent to suit the law," he continued.

While Justice Dash claimed that he had maintained impartiality, observers of his judgments – including the Supreme Court – have not always agreed. In October last year, he was part of a bench that issued a code of conduct for adolescent girls to "control their sexual urges" so that they are not deemed a "loser" by society. The Supreme Court had come down heavily on this judgment, saying that “writing such judgments is absolutely wrong”.

Justice Dash entered the Odisha judicial service and served as an additional district and sessions judge. He was elevated as an additional judge of the Orissa high court on October 10, 2009 and was transferred to the Calcutta high court on June 20, 2022.

Justice Dash is the second judge of the Calcutta high court to announce his political leanings in the recent past. Controversially, Abhijit Gangopadhyay resigned from the court in March this year and immediately joined the BJP. He is now contesting the Lok Sabha election. Gangopadhyay had presided over key judgments that criticised the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in the state.

This article went live on May twenty-first, two thousand twenty four, at twenty-four minutes past eleven in the morning.

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