A Calcutta High Court judge has stunned the judiciary by slamming the handling of the Narada bribery case by the court saying CBI’s e-mail asking for the Narada case to be transferred out of Bengal was wrongly listed before a division bench of two instead of a single judge.

“We have been reduced to a mockery,” Justice Arindam Sinha wrote in an explosive letter dated May 24 to acting High Court Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and other judges.

“The High Court must get its act together. Our conduct is unbecoming of the majesty the High Court commands,” Justice Sinha wrote in his letter.

The CBI sent an e-mail to the High Court on May 17 after arresting four political leaders, including two Bengal Ministers. A division bench headed by Chief Justice Bindal heard the CBI’s request the same day and put on hold bail granted to the Trinamool leaders.

The CBI sought transfer of the case out of State citing Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s sit-in protest at the agency’s office and the ruckus created by Trinamool supporters outside the building.

In his letter, Justice Sinha has contended that the CBI’s transfer plea should have been heard by a single judge and it should not have been treated as a “writ petition” in the absence of any substantial question of law related to the constitution.

“The mob factor may be a ground on merits for adjudication of the motion but could the first division bench have taken it up and continued to hear it as a writ petition is the first question,” he wrote.

The judge also objected to the division bench passing on the case to a larger bench when the judges disagreed on whether to grant bail to the accused Trinamool leaders, and said the opinion of a third judge should have been taken instead.

He criticised the way the division bench was not available the next day and did not entrust another bench to hear the matter. “The public were presented with the situation of the High Court having interfered with the liberty of their elected representatives and then it would not be available for that day to adjudicate on their liberty,” the letter said.

“The two-judge division bench had a difference of opinion, with one favouring the granting of interim bail and the other not, but the procedures for such situations were not followed,” he wrote.

Justice Sinha wrote in case of difference within a bench, a third judge’s opinion is usually taken, which was done in this case.