May 11,2019:
On Friday, Attorney General KK Venugopal, stated that he wrote to top five Supreme Court (SC) judges, including Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, seeking constitution of a special panel comprising former judges of Supreme Court, to examine allegations of sexual harassment against CJI by a Former SC employee.Reports had stated that Government wasn’t happy with his letter.
Venugopal thus clarified that his letter was sent to the judges on April 22, two days after allegations surfaced in the media. “I wrote asking them to have a high-powered panel to look into the allegations. This was done before Justice SA Bobde announced members of the in-house committee. I suggested nomination of retired Supreme Court judges as the panel members”.
Panel was formed on April 23. Its members were named by Justice Bobde, who was entrusted by CJI to look into the matter and take action.
“It’s too little and too late,” said Senior Advocate Vikas Singh, commenting on Venugopal’s letter. He added that,“If he had to write this, he should have done on the same day when the chief justice had assembled to speak on the allegations. There he supported the CJI and so the letters are just an afterthought.”
Venugopal wrote another letter on April 23, clarifying that his suggestion to judges on the panel’s composition was in his personal capacity and not as a government law officer. He denied the media reports that “serious differences” had arisen between the government and him after the first letter, and termed them “untrue”.
Justice Bobde Committee on May 6 gave a clean chit to the CJI. The panel had proceeded ex-parte after the complainant withdrew from its proceedings on April 30.
Source HT
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