Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh on Monday offered an unconditional apology before the Calcutta High Court in connection with suo motu criminal contempt proceedings initiated against him and others.

Appearing on Ghosh's behalf, Senior Advocate Kalyan Bandyopadhyay made the statement before a special bench comprising Justices Arijit Banerjee, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, and Rajarshi Bharadwaj.

"Before I say anything else, I wish to begin by tendering an unqualified apology to Your Lordships if I have committed contempt of court," Bandyopadhyay said.

At the same time, he questioned the maintainability of the contempt petition, arguing that the special bench lacked jurisdiction to hear the matter.

Referring to the Calcutta High Court Contempt of Court Rules, 1975, Bandyopadhyay contended that while the Court can initiate contempt proceedings suo motu, the order passed by Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam merely constituted the bench through an administrative directive rather than a judicial one.

"Proceedings have been initiated by a purely administrative order of the Chief Justice. This does not reflect the initiation of a judicial motion," he submitted.

The bench heard the arguments in part and scheduled the matter for further hearing on a later date.

The contempt case arises from allegations that a group of individuals, including Ghosh, staged a protest outside the chamber of advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya on April 25. During the demonstration, a picture of Justice Biswajit Basu was allegedly defaced.

The protest was reportedly linked to court proceedings concerning the controversial 2016 recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff in West Bengal.

In all, eight individuals have been issued notices in the contempt proceedings.