‘Ready to go back to RSS’: Calcutta high court judge in his farewell speech
Justice Chitta Ranjan Dash, who retired as a Calcutta high court judge on Monday, confessed that he was and remains a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Chitta Ranjan Dash went on to say that he was “ready to go back to the organisation” if they needed help or work.
“To the distaste of some persons, I must admit here that I was and I am a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)…I owe a lot to the organisation… I am there from my childhood and throughout my youth,” Justice Dash said during his farewell speech at the high court.
Justice Dash had stated that he had distanced himself from the organization for approximately 37 years due to his legal job.
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“I have never used my membership of the organisation for any advancement of my career because it is against its principles…I treated everybody at par, be he a rich or poor person, be he a communist, or from the BJP, Congress or TMC…” he said.
Justice Dash went on to declare that because he has done nothing wrong in his life, he has the bravery to admit that he is a member of the RSS. “If I am a good person, I could not belong to a bad organisation,” he stated.
After 14 years as a high court judge, Justice Dash said, “I have learned to be courageous, upright, and have an equal view for others, as well as a sense of patriotism and commitment to the work…”
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Justice Chitta Ranjan Dash
Justice Dash was born in Sonepur, Odisha, in 1962 and attained his law graduation from Madhu Sudan Law College in Cuttack in 1985.
He enrolled as an advocate in 1986 and was appointed as the state government’s extra standing counsel in 1992, a position he held until 1994. Justice Dash joined the Orissa Superior Judicial Service (Senior Branch) as a direct recruit in February 1999, and he was promoted to additional judge of the Orissa High Court in October 2009.
On June 20, 2022, he was appointed as a judge of the Calcutta High Court through transfer.
During his journey, Justice Dash was at the center of a huge controversy when he was part of a bench that gave a judgment with specific norms of conduct for adolescent girls to ‘suppress their sexual appetites’.
