GUWAHATI: During Lockdown 2.0, Justice has travelled and how!
Justice Biswanath Somadder, who needed to take up his new appointment as Chief Justice of the Meghalaya High Court, neither took a chartered flight nor ordered a train. Instead, he traveled nearly 2,000 km from Uttar Pradesh by road to Meghalaya's capital Shillong for his swearing-in.
He was serving as a Judge of the Allahabad High Court and he covered the distance from the north Indian city in two phases.
First, he travelled up to Kolkata. After a brief hiatus there, he resumed his journey for Shillong and reached the hill station on Sunday night.
He was administered the oath of office by Governor Tathagata Roy. Everyone present there maintained the standard protocols of COVID-19 including social distancing.
Justice Mohammad Rafiq, who was serving as the Meghalaya HC Chief Justice, also travelled by road to Bhubaneswar to take oath as the Chief Justice of Orissa High Court.
Meghalaya's Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong told journalists Justice Somadder followed the COVID-19 protocols before and after his arrival. Soon after his swearing-in, he confined himself to his residence to undergo a 14-day quarantine.
Born in 1963, Justice Somadder did his schooling at the La Martiniere for Boys in Kolkata and graduated from the University of Calcutta. He enrolled as an advocate in 1989.
Elevated as a permanent Judge of the Calcutta High Court in 2006, he was appointed as the Executive Chairman of State Legal Services Authority of West Bengal in 2018 and then, as the Judge-in-Charge, Administrative Department, High Court at Calcutta the same year. He was appointed as a Judge of the Allahabad High Court in 2019.