{"id":5303,"date":"2019-04-25T15:36:16","date_gmt":"2019-04-25T10:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/34.22.110.190\/english\/?p=5303"},"modified":"2021-01-05T03:12:33","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T21:42:33","slug":"open-letter-by-259-women-to-supreme-court-judges-seeks-impartial-inquiry-by-credible-individuals-on-sexual-harassment-charges-against-cji-ranjan-gogoi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/open-letter-by-259-women-to-supreme-court-judges-seeks-impartial-inquiry-by-credible-individuals-on-sexual-harassment-charges-against-cji-ranjan-gogoi\/","title":{"rendered":"Open letter by 259 women to Supreme Court judges seeks impartial inquiry by \u201ccredible individuals\u201d on sexual harassment charges against CJI Ranjan Gogoi"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an open letter to the judges of the Supreme Court of India, 259 women have sought a \u201cfair and impartial\u201d inquiry into the allegations of sexual harassment against Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, in accordance with the Sexual\u00a0\u00a0 Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act 2013.<\/p>\n

The signatories have demanded an inquiry by \u201ccredible individuals\u201d within a fixed time of 90 days. They have also demanded that the CJI refrain from doing his official duties till the completion of the inquiry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is\u00a0 these\u00a0 measures\u00a0 which\u00a0 will\u00a0 uphold\u00a0 the\u00a0 dignity\u00a0 and\u00a0 independence\u00a0 of \u00a0the Judiciary and more particularly, restore the faith of all women, indeed all citizens of the country, in the Judiciary,\u201d the signatories mentioned in the letter.<\/p>\n

In the letter, the signatories \u2013 lawyers, scholars and members of women\u2019s groups and civil society \u2013 said that they were \u201cshocked at reading the\u00a0 contents\u00a0 of\u00a0 the\u00a0 complaint\u00a0 of\u00a0 sexual\u00a0 harassment and criminal intimidation\u201d suffered by a former Supreme Court employee.<\/p>\n

The letter says that \u201cequally worrisome\u201d was the CJI\u2019s response. CJI Ranjan Gogoi had constituted a special bench along with two other judges to hear the matter \u201cof great public importance touching upon the independence of judiciary\u201d.\u00a0\u201cIn short, he constituted a Bench to hear his own case!\u201d the signatories observed in the letter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are both shocked and saddened that the Chief Justice of India as well as the Special Bench have responded as most men, in public office or in positions of authority and power do, when accused of sexual misconduct,\u201d the letter, published in The Leaflet<\/span><\/a>, observes.<\/p>\n

\u201cDenial of the allegations, maligning the complainant, citing past histories, imputing ulterior motives to the complainant are familiar and regular devices deployed by accused men. Equally\u00a0 common is the undertaking of vindictive measures including administrative harassment and suits of defamation against complainants,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

The signatories added in the letter that not only did the CJI and the apex court not set an example by their behaviour, but \u201cthey appear to have moved a step ahead to delegitimize women\u2019s complaints of sexual harassment \u2013 they have declared that the allegation is itself an attempt to tarnish the independence of the Judiciary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the absence of a duly conducted investigation or enquiry, we are puzzled about how the Bar Council of India, lawyers and judges are concluding with such haste that the complaint is false, baseless and motivated,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Justice Bobde, the next senior most judge from Supreme Court was asked by the CJI to enquire into the allegations of sexual harassment. Justice\u00a0 Bobde appointed a committee with himself as chair and Justice NV Ramana and Justice Indira Banerjee as members.<\/p>\n

The constitution of this committee \u201cwith no external member\u201d is in complete violation of The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act 2013, it was observed in the letter.<\/p>\n

The committee will hear the case on Friday, and has issued a notice asking the complainant to be present. There is no fixed time frame to conclude the proceedings, and it will follow an in-house procedure without legal representation from either side.<\/p>\n

The letter mentions that while the CJI may not need legal representation, \u201cthis is tilting the balance against the complainant\u201d and violates the spirit\u00a0 of the Vishakha judgement and The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act 2013.<\/p>\n

The signatories have demanded the following:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Constituting a special enquiry committee consisting of credible individuals to conduct a thorough enquiry at the earliest and create an atmosphere of transparency and confidence for the complainant to depose.<\/li>\n
  2. The special enquiry committee should follow the norms of the IC and accordingly conduct its enquiry.<\/li>\n
  3. The Chief Justice of India should refrain from transacting official duties and responsibilities until the completion of the enquiry.<\/li>\n
  4. The complainant should be allowed legal assistance from lawyer of her choice.<\/li>\n
  5. The enquiry should be completed within 90 days as stated in the law.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The committee “with no external member\u201d violates The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act 2013, they said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":279,"featured_media":5305,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,9],"tags":[],"tmauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editors-choice","8":"category-nation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5303"},{"taxonomy":"tmauthors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tmauthors?post=5303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}