The Public Information Officer of the Supreme Court has refused to disclose the details of a report submitted by former SC Judge, Justice AK Patnaik, on his probe into the “larger conspiracy” behind the sexual harassment allegations levelled against the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi, reported LiveLaw.

An RTI application was filed by journalist Saurav Das seeking details of the said report, and submitting that no public authority can choose to deny information after the enactment of the RTI Act, as per a Scroll.in report.

He also referred to a decision of the Central Information Commission in KK Agnihotri v. Ministry of Communication & IT, where it was held, “If the desired information is kept in a sealed cover and it is not otherwise covered by any of the exemption provisions, then it must be disclosed after opening the cover”, reported LiveLaw.

But the Public Information Officer of the Supreme Court responded, “The nature of information sought is exempt under Section 8(1)(b), 8(1)(j) and Section 11(1) of the Right to Information Act, 2005”, according to some media reports.

Section 8(1)(b) exempts disclosure of information which has been “expressly forbidden to be published by any court of law or tribunal or the disclosure of which may constitute contempt of court.”

Section 8(1)(j) covers information which relates to personal information, the disclosure of which can breach an individual’s privacy. Section 11 exempts disclosure of third-party information.

In addition to this, the Public Information Officer said that Das was not a party to the judicial proceedings and information with respect to any judicial matter may be sought only by moving an application under the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, as per a LiveLaw report.

On February 18, the Supreme Court Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian had closed the case registered by it in 2019 to probe the alleged conspiracy against the independence of judiciary as sexual harassment charges were levelled against Ranjan Gogoi.

An enquiry panel headed by former top court judge, Justice AK Patnaik submitted a report stating that a conspiracy behind the sexual harassment allegations cannot be “ruled out”. According to LiveLaw, the report also stated that certain stances taken by former CJI Gogoi during his tenure could have led to the sexual misconduct allegations. The report also referred to an Intelligence Bureau input that several persons were unhappy with Justice Gogoi for driving the Assam-NRC process.  

The Bench observed that there is no point in prolonging the case as acquiring electronic evidence is unlikely, and disposed of the matter. The court said, “The veracity of the allegations levelled by lawyer Utsav Singh Bains could not be verified completely due to the limited access of records and other collaborative material.”

Utsav Bains had told the court that he was allegedly approached by some ‘fixers’ to file a false complaint against the former CJI for Rs. 1.5 crores. In May, 2019, a three-judge committee cleared Ranjan Gogoi’s name in the case and concluded that there was no substance in the allegations made by the employee of the Supreme Court.

Related:

SC closes case probing ‘conspiracy’ behind sexual harassment charges against Ranjan Gogoi
Former CJI Ranjan Gogoi nominated to Rajya Sabha

The post SC refuses to disclose probe report into ‘conspiracy’ against Judiciary appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Attorney General KK Venugopal has refused to grant sanction to initiate contempt proceedings against former Chief Justice of India and Rajya Sabha member Ranjan Gogoi, for his statements against the judiciary, reported Bar & Bench.

The AG has said that it is true that the former CJI did make some strong statements about the judiciary and the Supreme Court of India, and “the statements apparently reflect his deep frustration with the ills that undoubtedly beset the judicial system”, tweeted Saket Gokhale who sought the initiation of contempt proceedings against Ranjan Gogoi.

AG Venugopal further said, “I had the occasion to watch the entirety of the interview. It is obvious that all that has been said was for the good of the institution and will not in any manner scandalise the court or lower its authority in the eyes of the public.”

On February 23, the RTI activist Gokhale had posted on his Twitter account that he had written to the Attorney General of India to bring to his notice the alleged insulting remarks made by the former CJI against the top court.

Have written to Attorney General for India seeking sanction for contempt of court proceedings against former CJI Gogoi for statements made at the India Today Conclave.

Sanction was given for harmless tweets by @kunalkamra88 & @sanitarypanels.

Why should a former CJI be special? pic.twitter.com/hiDwNBE6d8

— Saket Gokhale (@SaketGokhale) February 23, 2021

In a conclave event organised by India Today on February 12, Ranjan Gogoi had made the following statements, that were laid down by Gokhale in his letter to the Attorney General:

“You want a 5 trillion-dollar economy, but you have a ramshackled judiciary.”

“If you were to go to court, you’d only be washing your dirty linen in court. You won’t get a verdict. I have no hesitation in saying it.”

“Only corporations willing to take chances with their millions of rupees go to the Supreme Court.”

“What is your opinion of the judiciary? Not very positive.”

“The judicial system has not worked for more reason than one.”

“Unfortunately, there are many judges succumbing to criticism made in the media.”

In the letter, Saket Gokhale also stated that the precedent established set by the office, against comedian Kunal Kamra and cartoonist Rachita Taneja is a “benchmark for what constitutes contempt of court in your (KK Venugopal) opinion.” Hence, he was requested to take into account Justice Gogoi’s statements that were “far more contemptuous in their degree and seriousness in scandalising the supreme court” than some innocuous tweets.

Related:

Public’s faith in judiciary is founded on its own actions, not criticism: Kunal Kamra to SC
SC issues contempt notices to Rachita Taneja and Kunal Kamra
Stand up comic Kunal Kamra faces contempt charges for tweets

The post Attorney General denies consent for contempt case against former CJI Ranjan Gogoi appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On Monday, the President of India nominated former Supreme Court Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi to the Rajya Sabha. Gogoi had retired in November 2019. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issued a gazette notification to announce his nomination to the RS. The notification may be viewed here:  

Speaking to media persons in Guwahati on Tuesday, Gogoi reportedly said, “I have accepted it since I have a strong conviction that the legislative and the judiciary must at some point of time work together for nation-building. My presence in parliament will be an opportunity to project the views of the judiciary before the legislature and vice versa.”

Gogoi is perhaps best known for presiding over the Supreme Court case regarding the National Register of Citizens (NRC) that was being updated in his home state of Assam. Gogoi also headed the SC bench that handed the land in Ayodhya to the infant deity and the akhara, and asked the state to provide separate land for construction of a mosque. In fact, he had allegedly put Kashmir related hearings on hold to prioritise the Ayodhya hearing. He had also declined a plea to probe the Rafale deal and dodged a ‘Me Too’ bullet when an in-house panel gave him a clean chit in a matter related to sexual harassment.

In fact, in May 2019, Gogoi, in a shocking turn of events in connection with a petition by activist Harsh Mander against the inhuman condition in detention camps, had refused to recuse himself from the case and instead removed Mander as the petitioner! Mander had appealed to the CJI to recuse himself in light of a few statements made by the CJI at the previous hearing which Mander thought displayed bias against so called foreigners.

At the previous hearing while responding to the affidavit filed by Assam Chief Secretary Alok Kumar, Gogoi had allegedly remarked, “You have no right to continue in office after authoring such an affidavit… This court will not be party to such an unheard of arrangement… You have 900 detainees when lakhs of illegal foreigners have already intermingled with the local population. Most of these foreigners are in the voters’ list and are taking part in the political system of this country.”  

Mander had filed an application demanding Gogoi’s recusal “in the interest of justice, in the larger interest of the institution.” Mander submitted he feared the CJI’s alleged bias against non-citizens would affect the outcome in the case. Dismissing Mander’s recusal application, the CJI had reportedly said, “Recusal is destruction of the institution. We are not recusing. We will not allow anybody to browbeat this institution.” Mander’s name has been removed as petitioner and been replaced with the Supreme Court Legal Services Authority.

There have been other allegations against Gogoi of deciding in favour of the regime. Caravan documented these in this scathing piece.

Predictably, Gogoi’s RS nomination led to outrage. Congress heavyweight Kapil Sibal took a not so subtle dig when he compared Gogoi to Justice HR Khanna in his tweet:

Justice H R Khanna remembered for :

1) his integrity
2)standing up to govt.
3) upholding rule of law

Ranjan Gogoi for

lapping up a Rajya Sabha nomination for

1) being saved by govt.
2) standing in line with it
3) compromising his own and the integrity of the institution

— Kapil Sibal (@KapilSibal) March 17, 2020

Meanwhile former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha hoped Gogoi would decline the nomination:

I hope ex-cji Ranjan Gogoi would have the good sense to say ‘NO’ to the offer of Rajya Sabha seat to him. Otherwise he will cause incalculable damage to the reputation of the judiciary.

— Yashwant Sinha (@YashwantSinha) March 16, 2020

All India Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra tweeted:

Fmr CJI Gogoi nominated to Rajya Sabha! Why am I not surprised?
Any propriety, Sir?
He directed NRC exercise
Ram Mandir in hurried hearings
Refusal to hear J&K habeas corpus
Immunity from law in own sexual harassment case
Politician or judge all along, ye Greedy Lord? pic.twitter.com/af3IdhSf1a

— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) March 16, 2020

But perhaps the biggest stinger came in the form of The Telegraph’s headline Kovind, not Covid, did it. The scathing piece also shot down comparisons to former CJI Ranganath Mishra who had presided over the anti-Sikh riots case and also became a RS MP, saying, “Justice Misra became a Rajya Sabha member only in July 1998, almost seven years after stepping down as CJI in late 1991. In between, he had served as chairman of the National Human Rights Commission and then joined the Congress. He was elected, not nominated, to the Upper House.”

The post Former CJI Ranjan Gogoi nominated to Rajya Sabha appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Guwahati, 4th November, 2019: The Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, has come out strongly in support of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), this time outside his Court. Attending a book release function at New Delhi, on November 3, 2019, he said, “NRC is a not a document for the moment, it is a base document for the future. This is in my comprehension is (the) intrinsic value of the NRC.” He ‘warned’ that all forces who are opposing the NRC are “playing with fire.”

The statements from India’s chief justice who has presided over a bench overseeing the implementation of this arduous, bureaucratic task –updating of the NRC—came at an august gathering in the nation’s capital, New Delhi. Justice Ranjan Gogoi was releasing the book, “Post-colonial Assam (1947-2019)” authored by noted Journalist Mrinal Talukdar. Making a substantive speech on the occasion, the CJP who retires in about two weeks elaborated further: “The NRC is not either a new or a novel idea. It finds expression as early as in the year 1951 and in the particular context of Assam in the year 1985, when Assam Accord was signed. In fact, the current NRC is an attempt to update the 1951 NRC.”

The outgoing CJI, who also hails from Assam, further stated that, “Prior to this exercise, there was an enormous amount of guesswork on the number of illegal immigrants. There was (therefore) an urgent need to ascertain with some degree of certainty the number of illegal migrants, which is what the current exercise of NRC had attempted, nothing more, nothing less.” On the differences of opinion and rejecting of NRC by certain counterparts, the CJI said, “Unfortunately, the simple idea of acceptance, especially of people, who may be different or diverse from us, is an idea from which people are at a great distance. We seem to be in an era where our failure to accept what is different from us is no longer considered as a shortcoming. In fact, we wear such failure on our sleeves with misplaced pride and vanity.” the CJI, who is under severe attack by communal-ultra nationalist, forces counter-attacked.

Underplaying the numbers game in light of the large number of NRC exclusions, the CJI said, “Nineteen lakh or 40 lakh, the number does not matter. It is base document for the future.”  Justice Ranjan Gogoi came down heavily, against communal and ultra nationalist forces, which have been at the forefront in criticising the entire ongoing process of updating the NRC. “It needs to be told and brought on record that the people who raised objections, including on these cut-off dates, are playing with fire,” he warned. “At the crossroads, we need to keep in mind the fact that our national discourse has witnessed the emergence of armchair commentators, who are not only far from ground realities, but also seek to present a highly distorted picture.”

These remarks by CJI Ranjan Gogoi, forceful in nature, are a strong message for communal and ultra nationalist Assamese chauvinist forces, which have been continuously attacking and rejecting the entire process of updating NRC in Assam. Since the publication of final NRC on August 31, 2019, the ruling BJP and it’s leaders as also the rank and file are involved in a high voltage campaign deriding the “low” numbers of exclusion in the final NRC list especially with regards to the Muslim population in Assam. Justice Gogoi has tactfully appealed to all such forces to stop alluding to such imaginary fantasy figures.

The second aspect of Justice Ranjan Gogoi’s remarks is around the on-going debate of the cut-off date for updating NRC. Many BJP leader and their allied forces have expressed the opinion that, if the cut-off date for the present process—updating of the NRC –had been fixed at 1951 instead of 1971, as of today, the number of excluded persons would had been higher! These forces have not understood the ground realities which Ranjan Gogoi has understood. The fact is that, if the base year of updating NRC would have been fixed as 1951, then the 6(A) of the Citizenship Act, 1955 would have been applicable to Assam. In that situation the cut of date updating NRC would have been 1987 in any real sense. This would have caused a greater embarrassment to Assamese nationalist and chauvinist forces. There was an indirect warning to both communal and chauvinist forces in his speech of yesterday.

Whatever CJI Ranjan Gogoi said at the book launch ceremony, is not out of context. The book “Post colonial Assam” by noted journalist Mrinal Talukdar itself is a brain-storming of thoughts and has thrown a flood of light not only on the post-independence socio-political narratives of Assam, but also on the fundamental problems that have shaken Assam for decades. This includes the up-dation of the NRC which was meant to be a solution to the complicated nationality and foreigners’ issue in Assam. Mrinal Talukdar, once the Northeast Bureau Chief of UNI and presently holding the post of Deputy Editor, Pratidin Time has also objectively garnered information and covered news on the NRC for some years now.
 

The post CJI Ranjan Gogoi’s take on the NRC: Assam appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
New Delhi: Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi dropped out and nominated Justice A K Sikri to the special Selection Committee that will review the case against CBI Director Alok Verma and decide his future within a week. The three-member committee also comprises the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition.
 
The nomination comes a day after the Supreme Court set aside a government order divesting Verma of his powers, and left it to the high-powered committee to consider the matter “at the earliest and, in any case, within a week from the date of this order”. In the meantime, Verma has been restricted from taking any major policy decisions.
 
Verma had moved the SC against his divestment, arguing that the government should have approached the selection committee, tasked with appointing the CBI Director, before initiating action against him.
 
“To this, the government had contended that the role of the committee was only in the appointment of the CBI Director. The SC, however, said, “no provision with regard to interim suspension or removal is to be found in the DSPE (Delhi Special Police Establishment) Act, 1946 (under which the agency was established)”. The court added, “if the legislative intent would have been to confer in any authority of the State power to take interim measures against the Director, CBI… surely, the legislation would have contained enabling provisions to that effect,” The Indian Express reported.
 
PM Modi, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge and Justice Sikri are also expected to decide on the next CBI chief to succeed Alok Verma, who retires on January 31.
 
Verma was sent on compulsory leave by the government in a post-midnight order on October 23 and replaced by an interim chief, Nageswar Rao. He contested the action in the Supreme Court, saying a CBI director has a two-year fixed term and only the selection panel headed by the prime minister can remove him.
 
The court yesterday agreed, and so left it to the panel to take a decision on Verma.
 

The post CBI vs CBI: CJI Ranjan Gogoi pulls out of panel deciding Alok Verma’s future appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
New Delhi: Justice Ranjan Gogoi will become the 46^th Chief Justice of India and will succeed Chief Justice Dipak Misra on October 3. CJI Misra is retiring on October 2. He will be the first CJI to come from Assam and north-eastern states.
 
Convention demands the recommendation letter from the incumbent be sent at least a month before his date of retirement. Convention also requires the senior most judge of the Supreme Court be appointed Chief Justice of India. The recommendation letter of the incumbent is the first step in the process of appointment of the next Chief Justice of India.
 
CJI Misra has endorsed Justice Gogoi as he is the most senior judge in the Supreme Court after Misra. CJI Misra followed the tradition and convention.
 
Justice Gogoi is one of the four Supreme Court judges who had held the unprecedented press conference in January this year, protesting nepotism in the court and raising concerns about the administration in the apex court, saying it was “not in order”.
 
“Justice Gogoi is from Assam, and he headed the special bench that is monitoring the National Register of Citizens to identify citizens in the state. Born in 1954, Justice Gogoi joined the Bar in 1978. He was subsequently appointed as Permanent Judge of Gauhati High Court on February 28, 2001. Later transferred to the Punjab & Haryana High Court in September 2010, he went on to become the Chief Justice of the same high court in February 2011. He was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court in April 2012,” reported The Indian Express.
 
“If the recommendation is cleared by the Central government, Justice Gogoi will be administered the oath of office by President Ram Nath Kovind on October 3,” the report said.
 
Former Attorney General of India Soli Sorabjee was approving of the decision to nominate Justice Gogoi.  “He is the senior most judge after Justice Dipak Misra. So, he should take charge. I don’t see any problem in that. There is nothing that will disqualify him from being the next Chief Justice. He is a very far-sighted judge. He keeps an open mind. He is a very fair judge. He is not at all bothered about what the government would feel. He is independent and that’s what we want – independent, intelligent and courageous. That’s what we want the Chief Justice of India to be and that’s what Ranjan Gogoi is,” Sorabjee told ANI.
 
Senior advocate KTS Tulsi also called it “great news.” “Firstly, it strengthens the judiciary. The convention is being followed. If it had not happened, it would have been a serious problem for not only the judiciary, but the state. I am glad that it is being done. Also, Justice Gogoi is one of the most outstanding judges that you could come across. He is an intuitive judge. He makes up his mind in a matter of seconds. But, he is always open to changing his view if you are able to convince him. He is a brilliant judge in all fields,” Tulsi told ANI.

At the third Ramnath Goenka Memorial Lecture on ‘Vision of Justice’ in July, he lamented at the fact that the SC verdicts on protecting speech and expression delivered for the rights of the Press did not translate into reality. Gogoi had said that independent journalists and noisy judges are needed in a democracy.

 
Related Articles:
Democracy needs independent journalists and noisy judges: Justice Gogoi
PILs Should Be Heard by Collegium Says SC Bar Assn Expressing Grave Concern
Guardians of Democracy: 4 judges openly challenge Nepotism in the SC
 

The post Justice Ranjan Gogoi to be the 46th Chief Justice of India appeared first on SabrangIndia.