The Supreme Court has been at the centre of an invisible maelstrom since the Chief Justice of India constituted a three-judge panel last month to look into allegations of harassment of a legal intern by a former judge of the court. Many things about the case have caused serious disquiet in legal circles, and some aberrations and discrepancies that have come to light suggest the need for extreme caution and sobriety in dealing with matters that have the potential to destroy reputations earned over a lifetime.
On December 5, the Supreme Court has made its findings public and the Delhi Police asked the young woman to file a complaint; hence it may be pertinent to examine the information that has come into the public domain. Several legal luminaries including former Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir, former Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, former Attorney General Soli Sorabjee, Ram Jethmalani and Dr Subramanian Swamy feel that Justice AK Ganguly has had a sterling reputation and need not resign from the chairmanship of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission under pressure.
News of the alleged misdemeanour was broken by a national daily on November 12, 2013, after it was first reported in a blog of the Journal of Indian Law and Society on November 6; the intern also repeated her allegation in an interview to Legally India website. On seeing the news item on November 12, Chief Justice P Sathasivam constituted a committee comprising Justices RM Lodha, HL Dattu and Ranjana Prakash Desai on the same day. It examined the statements of the intern, affidavits of her three witnesses, and the submission of Justice AK Ganguly, and submitted its report on November 28.
But even before the report was submitted and reviewed by the Supreme Court, the young intern startled the entire legal fraternity by going public with her identity in an interview to the American daily, The Wall Street Journal, on November 25. According to this interview, the alleged assault occurred on Christmas eve, December 24, 2012, at a time when the Capital was engulfed in protests over the deadly gang-rape of a young para-medical student. In the Journal of Indian Law and Society blog, the girl said a “highly reputed, recently retired” Supreme Court judge had assaulted her while she was interning in his office.
This is where some discrepancies creep in. Justice AK Ganguly, who was subsequently identified as the impugned judge by the Supreme Court panel, retired in February 2012. He was not a judge of the Supreme Court during the time of the alleged assault. Also, the girl was not interning at the Supreme Court in that time, or in his office where he is working as chairman of West Bengal Human Rights Commission. Her official connection with him is yet to be ascertained.
Questions arise as to how and why she met him during his brief visit to Delhi in December 2012, reportedly in connection with the Mohun Bagan football scandal. Two points will be pertinent in the police investigation, should it take place. The first is whether the judge called the intern, or she called him, to set up the meeting. And second, why would any person of a particular religion spend an evening (8 pm to 10.30 pm) with a rank outsider on the occasion of the biggest festival of that faith? Why was the girl not with her family or her faith community, and where did she go after she left the hotel? Some eminent citizens feel there is a need to scrutinize the South Africa-based legal outfit for which the alleged victim works from Bangalore city.
In her interview with The Wall Street Journal, she explained why she decided against filing a formal complaint and what finally made her go public, “It took me time to come to terms with the fact that I had been assaulted. When I finally did, all that I wanted to do was to erase the memory from my conscious… I pondered over the idea of legal recourse, but feared it would do more harm than good. First, my case would’ve dragged on for years. Second, defense lawyers would make me relive every violating moment in court – something I wanted to bury at the time. Third, in cases of assaults, where there is no physical evidence, it’s one word against the other, really”.
She said she told her family about the incident five months later, in May 2013, and that her grandmother and mother were against her raking it up. She finally wrote the blog, she claimed, to highlight the issue of day-to-day harassment of female lawyers in courts, rather than to launch an inquiry.
The Wall Street Journal interview went viral in legal circles, and perhaps caused some confusion in the Supreme Court because the victim was named repeatedly. Thus, the order put up on the official website in the name of Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam on December 5, 2013, mentioned the victim by name (copies are available with many persons who instantly downloaded it). This was hastily pulled down and rectified, but under Section 228 of the Indian Penal code, nobody can print or publish the name of a rape victim, and in this case the Chief Justice of India himself ordered the posting of the order on the website!
According to the operative portion of the report, the intern visited the judge on the evening of December 24, 2012, at Le Meridien hotel where he was staying, to assist him in his work; Justice Ganguly seems to accept that she was there. She stayed from 8 pm and 10.30 pm, and “an act of unwelcome behaviour” allegedly took place.
Contrary to reports in a section of the media, the Supreme Court has not indicted Justice Ganguly, but opined that since the said intern was not on the rolls of the Supreme Court and the accused judge was already retired on the date of the incident, “no further follow up action is required by this Court”. The Chief Justice has explained that he constituted the committee only because the media had reported that a “Supreme Court Judge” was involved in an inappropriate act. In its meeting of December 5, 2013, the entire court decided “that the representations made against former Judges of this Court are not entertainable by the administration of the Supreme Court”.
Legal circles point out that Justice Ganguly could have been targetted by some of the entities unhappy with his judgment in the 2G case, as a warning to other judges who would handle the cases in coming years. They say it is equally possible that some of his decisions as chairperson of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission have irked some persons in high places. The Trinamool Congress and the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee have seized upon the episode to seek the judge’s departure from the State.
Niticentral.com, 6 December 2013
Interview at:
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/11/25/women-dont-pity-themselves-anymore/