Background
Protik Prakash Banerjee, (born June 1, 1969) son of Late Mukul Prokash Banerjee, Senior Advocate and past Secretary of the Bar Association of the High Court at Calcutta, and the late Lekha Banerjee, Advocate, was educated at Calcutta Boys’ School and University College of Law, the University of Calcutta.
Between 1984 and 1994 he compered Western Music on All India Radio Calcutta and Yuva Vani. He regularly wrote on matters unconnected with the law, between 1989 and 1994 in the Economic Times. Enrolled on January 25, 1995 he practised initially as an Advocate-on-Record on the Appellate Side of the Hon’ble High Court at Calcutta and then as counsel in both the Original and Appellate Sides, in Civil, Constitutional Writ, Company, Labour, Commercial, Testamentary and Intestate jurisdictions, and reveled in trial law and arbitration, but had limited exposure in criminal matters and appeared only once in a revenue matter.
His pleasure was drafting and appearing in cases representing the ostensibly weaker side. He was the first Advocate in India to have won a Judgment in favor of his client that an arbitrator under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 is amenable to jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution of India. While at the Bar, he wrote commentaries on several subjects, including the Bengal Excise Act, the Essential Commodities Act, the Original Side Rules and the Appellate Side Rules, which went into more than one edition.
He was retained as Junior, the Standing Counsel of the State of West Bengal from June 9, 2011 until the demitted office, declining the position of a Senior Government Advocate, on March 9, 2014. He was named a Member of the Governing Body of the Surendranath Law College (the oldest Law College in India, which was initially known as Ripon College) on December 8, 2009 and served till 2011.
Interested in debate from school days, he continued the practice while at the Bar, and was awarded the Best Speaker Award twice in the Annual Debates of the Indian Law Institute by its West Bengal Unit, and was awarded the Most Outstanding Emerging Lawyer Award by the Indian Law Institute, West Bengal State Unit in 2009, the only occasion when it was awarded. He was elected the Vice President of the Bar Association of the High Court at Calcutta and took office on July 31, 2015 and demitted office on July 31, 2017.
He was appointed as an Additional Judge of the High Court at Calcutta on September 19, 2017 and took oath as an Additional Judge on September 21, 2017. His favourite pastime included reading, and as an avid bibliophile, he had more than 4.5 lakh books in his personal library apart from electronic books. Very active on social media, he has taken a sabbatical from Facebook since elevation.
Justice Banerjee has passed interim protection to IPS, Rajeev Kumar in the Saradha Chit Fund case in May, 2019. [Rajeev Kumar v. CBI]
In one of the cases he also recused himself, as the lawyer representing a party was his Facebook friend.
Calcutta HC | Appointment of Protik Prakash Banerjee as an Addl. Judge