No substance in allegations, says Supreme Court-appointed Committee
New Delhi: A Supreme Court-appointed Committee has given a clean chit to Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, who was accused of sexual harassment.
“The In-house Committee has found no substance in the allegations contained in the complaint dated April 19, 2019, of a former employee of the Supreme Court of India,” said a statement.
The Panel comprised Justice S.A. Bobde, the second-most senior Judge in the Apex Court, Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Indu Malhotra.
The Committee submitted its report on May 5, in accordance with the “in-house procedure to the next senior-most Judge competent to receive the report and also sent a copy of the report to the Judge concerned, namely the Chief Justice India.” The Court also said that the “in-house procedure was not liable to be made public.”
The Committee was formed after the woman on April 19 levelled allegations of sexual harassment against Gogoi, reportedly in a letter addressed to 22 Judges of the Supreme Court.
On Sunday, the Apex Court issued a statement declining that Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice Rohinton Nariman had met Bobde, who was heading the Panel probing the sexual harassment allegations against Gogoi.
It was claimed that Chandrachud and Nariman met the members of the In-house Committee on the evening of May 3 to register their concerns over continuing with the probe against Gogoi in the absence of the complainant.
In a press release issued on Sunday, Supreme Court Secretary General Sanjeev Kalgaonkar said: “This is wholly incorrect. The In-house Committee which is deliberating on the issue concerning the honourable Chief Justice of India deliberates on its own without any input from any other honourable Judge of this Court.”
On April 30, the former employee of the Supreme Court, who had accused Gogoi of sexually harassing her, said that she would no longer appear before the Panel as she felt that she was “not likely to get justice.” The woman said she felt “quite intimidated and nervous” in the presence of the three Supreme Court Judges.
Justice should not only be done but also should appear to have been done.If there is any conspiracy people want to know it.
But the highest court of India has allowed itself to become a prisoner of procedure and appears to have failed in carrying conviction about having given a clean chit on CJI sexual harassment case.
The in-house panel resorted to its power at the cost of fairness to the complainant, it appears
It was a test of great import that one of India’s great institutions failed. The main question was whether the Supreme Court would live up to the standards of fairness it expects of all authorities while inquiring into a former woman employee’s complaint of sexual harassment and victimisation against the Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi. An ad hoc committee, following an informal procedure, has concluded that the allegations have “no substance”, but the findings will not be made public. The report cannot be reviewed judicially. No one else, not even the complainant, knows what evidence was examined and who else testified apart from herself. All that is known is that she was heard, and questioned, at two sittings. She later withdrew from the inquiry, saying she was denied the help of a lawyer or a representative, that she found the questions from a panel of three sitting Supreme Court judges quite intimidating, and that she was not clear how her testimony was being recorded. There is no doubt that the committee remained impervious to the power imbalance in the situation. Perhaps she ought not to have pulled out from the probe, despite these grievances. The panel’s conclusion would have been even starker had she been present to hear how Justice Gogoi defended himself; and who among the court officials, if any, answered her specific and documented charges about the administrative harassment she was put through following the alleged incident of sexual harassment. The most relevant parts of the complaint were the transfer orders and disciplinary inquiry against her, the role of the court administration in dismissing her, and that of the Delhi Police in arresting her on a complaint of alleged bribery and initiating disciplinary action against her husband and his brother, both police personnel. It is not known if any of these officials were examined.
The manner in which the court dealt with the complaint on the administrative side has been less than fair. It is true that the in-house procedure devised in 1999 envisages only a committee of three judges to deal with allegations against serving Supreme Courtjudges. The fact that a special law to deal with sexual harassment at the workplace is in force since 2013 appears to have made no difference. The court could not bring itself, even in the interest of appearing fair, to adopt a formal procedure or allow the complainant to have legal representation. For all its judicial homilies on fairness, when it comes to dealing with its own the Supreme Court has come across as a prisoner of procedure and displayed an alarming propensity to mix up its institutional reputation with an individual’s interest. “The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power,” wrote Shakespeare. The decision by the ‘in-house committee’ is an egregious instance of a hallowed institution abusing its own greatness by letting its power speak, and not the compassion for which it is renowned.