New Delhi: Former Supreme Court judge Indira Banerjee said that the inquiry report into allegations of sexual harassment against the former chief justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi should have been made public as it would have cleared the air around the issue.
In an interview with Bar and Bench, Justice Banerjee – who retired on September 23 – spoke at length about the inquiry into allegations of harassment levelled at Gogoi by a Supreme Court staffer in April 2019, when he was still the CJI. Banerjee and Justices N.V. Ramana and Indu Malhotra were part of the internal committee formed by the top court to look into the allegations.
The judge suggested that Gogoi “got into trouble” because he was “stern with the staff”.
She added:
“I wish the report was made public. It would have cleared the air for him (former CJI Gogoi) and us. If somebody makes an advance with consent, can I say it is harassment? One needs to see what she said in her complaint very carefully since it is the judiciary involved. I am not trying to suggest that anything happened with consent.”
Justice Banerjee said that the inquiry committee was not sitting to “decide whether harassment had taken place or not” but to see whether Gogoi committed an act for which he could be removed from the post.
She added that the inquiry was never “brushed aside” but the allegations made against the Gogoi by the staffer “were not established”.
The former judge told Bar and Bench that she authored the inquiry report and was told by the chairperson of the inquiry committee Justice S.A. Bobde to “forget about Ps and Qs, about English grammar and spellings” because the report will never be published. But she insisted that she will proceed on the basis that it will be published. “If not today, then tomorrow. If not in my service, then after retirement. If not in my life, then after my death. No one should say that it was brushed under the carpet because he was the Chief Justice of India,” Banerjee told the website.
Banerjee, who was previously a chief justice of the Madras high court, admitted that the special sitting headed by CJI Gogoi on the day four websites – including The Wire – published the allegations against him “should have been avoided”. Gogoi was accused of being a judge in his own cause by heading the sitting and claimed the allegations were part of a ‘plot’ to ‘deactivate’ him.
“The sitting on Saturday headed by then CJI Gogoi should have been avoided. It was a big no. If there was a little more consultation with other judges, which was absolutely lacking, I would have said it was not needed to respond to the press at all,” Justice Banerjee told Bar and Bench.
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Before coming to the press, the woman raised the allegation of sexual harassment against Gogoi internally. Subsequently, she was first transferred and then removed from service. She told The Wire that the judicial machinery was misused to victimise her and her family – false cases were filed against them and her husband and brother-in-law were suspended from the Delhi police.
The manner in which the Supreme Court handled the allegations against Gogoi was severely criticised by civil society and watchdogs. Though the inquiry committee exonerated Gogoi and found no evidence to support the charge, the woman was reinstated to her position two months after the former CJI retired.
After her reinstatement, advocate Vrinda Grover told Hindustan Times, “The SC staffer stands vindicated. Her reinstatement with full back wages is an acknowledgement of the truth of her affidavit, complaining of sexual harassment and the systematic victimisation suffered by her.”
