Saturday, April 27, 2019

Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Don’t violate accuser’s fundamental rights' that was published in Newsband


Don’t violate accuser’s fundamental rights
The complaint against CJI has rocked the Supreme Court. Justice (retired) A.K. Patnaik has made the right decision by choosing to wait for the end of the in-house inquiry into a former woman employee’s complaint of sexual harassment by the CJI and subsequent victimisation, before starting his work. An in-house committee headed by Justice S.A. Bobde will look into the complaint of the dismissed woman court assistant.
Mr. Bains has alleged he was offered up to ₹1.50 crore by someone to file a false complaint against the CJI. In fact, it is alleged that 1.5 crore was offered not by someone but the relative of the women.
Clearly, the complaint of sexual harassment should get priority. It is only if the complaint is found to be false that there will be a case to probe whether it was part of a plot to malign the CJI, or a conspiracy.
The conduct of the SC must be only according to the laws of the land, SC's own past rulings and guidelines on sexual harassment issues.
It doesn't matter that the employee is no longer in service. The utterances of the CJI himself, his hurry in forming a three-judge bench with himself at its head, the comments made against the accuser by this bench, the direction to the 'press' to be 'responsible' in carrying related news etc. have been violative of the fundamental rights of the accuser.

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