Education and Family Background
Born in Tezpur, Assam, into an aristocratic Bengali Brahmins family, his father, Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee, was a prominent lawyer, intellectual, and Hindu revivalist and nationalist around the time of India's independence, and his mother, Binapani Debi ran the home. Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee was one of the founders and one-time president of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha. In 1948, when the Communist Party of India was banned by the Jawaharlal Nehru led Indian National Congress government in India, and its party leaders arrested, Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee formed the All India Civil Liberties Union, and agitated for their release. In the process, he came close to Jyoti Basu, in spite of continuing ideological political differences between the two.
Somnath was educated at Mitra Institution School, Presidency College and then the University of Calcutta in Calcutta. He also attended Jesus College, Cambridge and graduating with a B.A. in 1952 and a M.A. in 1957, both in law, has been awarded an honorary fellowship by the college in 2007. He was called to the bar from the Middle Temple in London and took up legal practice as an advocate at the Calcutta High Court before joining active politics.
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