An image of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and his wife Kalpana Das has gone viral on the messaging platform WhatsApp. The text above the photo says, “CJI Chandrachur’s present wife is related to Dr. S. P. Das Orthopaedic surgeon and personal physician of CM Government of West Bengal. Also Justice Chandrachur and Abhishek Banerjee spend their holidays in Malaysia and Bangkok together! Just informing you without any intentions behind.” (sic)
At a time when a CJI-led Bench of the Supreme Court is hearing the Kolkata rape and murder case, the image is being shared with the implicit suggestion that there is an understanding between the CJI and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
Alt News has received multiple requests on its WhatsApp helpline (76000 11160) to fact check the claim tagged with the image.
Click to view slideshow.The photo and/or the accompanying claim are also being shared across social media platforms. Below are a few instances:
Click to view slideshow.Fact Check
We first noticed that the image in the viral message/social media post is taken from an Instagram post by a user named supremecourtofindia1950. We looked at the timeline of this Instagram user and found that the photo had been shared on September 27, 2023. The photo is captioned, “Chief Justice of India D.Y.Chandrachud with his wife Kalpana Das at Rashtrapati Bhavan.” There is no mention of S P Das or Abhishek Banerjee.
View this post on Instagram
Next, we noticed that there were three separate claims in the social media post/message that is viral. These are:
- S P Das is Mamata Banerjee’s physician.
- Kalpana Das, the wife of CJI D Y Chandrachud, is related to S P Das.
- Trinamool MP and general secretary Abhishek Banerjee travels/vacations with CJI Chandrachud.
We found that both the Supreme Court registry and West Bengal Police had released statements refuting the claims in the viral image. The claim of any link between a family member of the CJI with a medical lobby in Bengal was termed ‘ill intended’ and ‘factually incorrect’ by the SC registry, according to Law Today.
The statement read, “A malicious tweet had been circulated on X ahead of the Supreme Court hearing on the Kolkata rape and murder case attempting to link a member of the family of the Chief Justice of India with a medical lobby in Bengal. The tweet is ill intended, factually incorrect and an attempt to malign the judiciary. A complaint has been registered in this regard with the Delhi Police.”
JUST IN: “Factually incorrect” Supreme Court Registry clarifies that CJI’s wife is NOT related to Mamata Banerjee’s personal physician
“A malicious tweet had been circulated on X ahead of the Supreme Court hearing on the Kolkata rape and murder case attempting to link a member… pic.twitter.com/oWnCezV3xA
— Law Today (@LawTodayLive) September 9, 2024
On the other hand, the official X handle of West Bengal Police first shared a tweet on September 7 in this regard. They said the claims in the viral message were ‘extremely derogatory’ and contained ‘baseless aspersions’.
It has come to our notice that extremely derogatory and baseless aspersions are being cast by some people in social media about the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India including the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India. Exploiting freedom of speech to indulge in wild falsehood, that too… pic.twitter.com/ilIedFC4Qj
— West Bengal Police (@WBPolice) September 7, 2024
Further, on September 10, Krishnanagar District Police from West Bengal tweeted that a ‘fake news’ had been circulated to defame the CJI and a case had been registered in this regard against Sujit Haldar of Fulbari, Krishnaganj PS (Krishnaganj PS Case No 349/24) and an investigation was underway.
🚨 Fake news was circulated on social media to intentionally defame the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India and attack the dignity of the Supreme Court, aiming to incite distrust and disturb public peace. A case has been registered against Sujit Haldar of Fulbari, Krishnaganj PS…
— Krishnanagar Police District (@KrishnanagarPD) September 10, 2024
Shyama Pada Das, an alumnus of North Bengal Medical College, is a senior orthopaedician practising in Kolkata. For years, he has been the personal physician of Mamata Banerjee. This is something he has himself publicly proclaimed on several occasions.
Das is also allegedly a key player in the state’s medical establishment and wields enormous power in the health sector. According to sources in the state’s medical fraternity that Alt News spoke to, Das is at the helm of what is known as the ‘North Bengal lobby’. This has been widely reported by mainstream media much before the R G Kar incident. In the wake of the horrific crime, too, the role of the North Bengal lobby has come under the scanner.
The readers should note that CJI DY Chandrachud’s wife Kalpana Das hails from the state of Odisha. This was publicly acknowledged by the CJI at a programme of the Odisha Judicial Academy in Bhubaneswar on May 6, 2023. “I think I have become a very constant visitor to Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. Now, the least of the reasons for which is that I am proudly regarded as the son-in-law of Odisha because my wife is an Odia,” Chandrachud said.
The last claim in the viral image is that Trinamool general secretary Ahishek Banerjee and CJI D Y Chandrachud spent holidays in Malaysia and Bangkok together. Readers should note that Alt News could not find any publicly available data to support this.
The post Police, SC registry refute unverified claims about CJI Chandrachud’s personal links with Mamata, Abhishek appeared first on Alt News.
This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Indradeep Bhattacharyya.
Indradeep Bhattacharyya | Radio Free (2024-09-11T15:58:40+00:00) Police, SC registry refute unverified claims about CJI Chandrachud’s personal links with Mamata, Abhishek. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2024/09/11/police-sc-registry-refute-unverified-claims-about-cji-chandrachuds-personal-links-with-mamata-abhishek/
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