Remember the Sexual harassment case against former CJI Ranjan Gogoi, who presided over his own trial and how the internal panel constituted to probe the allegations had given him a clean chit? Well. soon after the clean chit, suo motu proceedings were initiated to probe whether there was a larger conspiracy behind sexual harassment allegations against Former CJI Gogoi. A panel was also constituted to probe this. Now almost two years later the Supreme court has closed the probe. This probe was not only considered of Great Public importance but also was said to be important with respect to the Independence of Judiciary.
Today, the bench headed by Justice Kaul observed that enquiry panel headed by former SC judge Justice AK Patnaik has submitted a report. The report said that a conspiracy behind the sexual harassment allegations cannot be “ruled out”. Italso surmised that certain tough stances taken by ex-CJI Gogoi during his tenure could have triggered the allegations. It also referred to an Intelligence Bureau input that several persons were unhappy with Justice Gogoi for driving the Assam-NRC process.
However, since over two years have passed, it is difficulty to obtain electronic evidence. Quoting from the enquiry report of Justice Patnaik, the bench observed that “the veracity of the allegations leveled by lawyer Utsav Singh Bains could not be verified completely due to the limited access of records and other collaborative material”. In this backdrop, the bench closed the suo motu case observing “there is no requirement to keep the case going on”
#RanjanGogoi #SexualHarassment #SupremeCourt
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