SC closes sexual harassment case against former CJI Gogoi

The Supreme Court on Thursday closed the suo motu proceedings initiated by it in April 2019 to probe into the larger conspiracy behind allegations of sexual harassment leveled against then CJI Ranjan Gogoi. A report filed by the one-man judge Committee headed by former SC judge, Justice (Retd) AK Patnaik that was set up to examine the veracity of allegations of conspiracy leveled by a lawyer Utsav Bains, was submitted to the Court. After going through the report, a three-judge bench headed by Justice SK Kaul said, "The report acknowledges the existence of conspiracy cannot be ruled out."

According to Bar & Bench, Justice Kaul finally said, “A 3-member committee headed by the CJI SA Bobde has already submitted a report. Suo motu case is closed and proceedings are disposed of. There is no requirement to keep the case going on.”During the hearing, Justice Kaul further referred to the letter of Director of Intelligence Bureau that some conspiracy might have ensued due to the tough decisions like preparation of NRC in Assam. “There are strong reasons to believe that some kind of conspiracy might have been undertaken against CJI,” said Justice Kaul.Justice Patnaik in his report said that some tough administrative decisions taken by then CJI to streamline the Registry of SC could also have acted as the trigger.

The suo motu proceedings were initiated by a bench headed by former SC judge Justice Arun Mishra in April 2019. Later a lawyer Utsav Bains filed an affidavit making allegations of a conspiracy to malign then CJI hatched by persons in collusion with two dismissed employees of SC Registry. All his allegations were handed to Court in sealed cover and the same was forwarded to Justice Patnaik Committee.