Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Judge and accused' that was published in Newsband

Judge and accused

The allegations of sexual harassment were made by a former employee against the Chief Justice of India. This was taken up by a special Bench constituted by CJI Ranjan Gogoi, comprising himself, Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna. There is a separate ‘in-house procedure’ to deal with complaints against judges. Justice Gogoi was one of the four judges who spoke out against the manner in which his predecessor as CJI, Dipak Misra, managed the roster.

The complaint could be baseless and false. The complainant, a former junior court assistant, had made her charge in the form of an affidavit, supported by purported evidence, and sent it to 22 judges of the court. It referred to likely witnesses to the alleged sexual harassment and victimisation.

Reaction of CJI to the complaint may seem to be wrong. If she was the current employee the case could be referred to internal complaints committee. But, we should not care about ex-employee because all ex-s have grudges. If you go on witch-hunting, there would not be any left to do the work as we would be cycling in the vicious circle.

A disturbing trend has been witnessed over the last few years. Eminent judges like Justice AK Ganguly and Justice R Gogoi, who have passed orders on sensitive cases which went against the wishes/interests of a particular powerful political party, have been falsely accused of various charges. Justice Ganguly had presided over the sensational 2G scam case and his orders severely inconvenienced a particular political party. He was charged with a frivolous and baseless allegation of sexual misconduct. The court found no evidence to substantiate the allegations made by the complainant. Yet, the damage to his reputation was severe and he had to resign from the Chairmanship of the WBHRC.

Justice Gogoi's case seems to be headed the same way. Of course, the secular media houses play along as long as their political masters benefit from such controversies and baseless accusations. So this is the writing on the wall. Independence of autonomous institutions are once again at stake to such a level that CJI opted not to form an 'independent' committee. The present threat to the Constitution of India is so serious that he even deviated from one of the tenets of Principle of Natural Justice which mandates that 'no one can be a judge in his own cause.'

But the important thing is that it is baffling that the CJI thought it fit to be the 'judge, jury and executioner' in an alleged and serious sexual assault case in which he himself is the accused. How can the accused, howsoever mighty that person may be, be the lead Judge of the Court Bench and that too the highest court of the land? What sort of a message does that convey?