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Two prominent associations of lawyers who work at the Supreme Court have passed resolutions criticising the way in which a special hearing of the court was conducted on 20 April to address the allegations of sexual harassment against Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi.
A ‘full court’ of the Supreme Court means a sitting of all the judges of the Supreme Court (currently 27 of them).
On 20 April, after reports in Scroll, Caravan, The Wire and The Leaflet about the allegations, the CJI had constituted a special bench to hear what was termed a matter touching on the independence of the judiciary. According to the notice from the Supreme Court registry, the bench consisted of CJI Gogoi along with Justices Arun Mishra and Sanjiv Khanna.
CJI Gogoi proceeded to cast doubts about the allegations and the complainant, and said the allegations were part of a larger conspiracy to “deactivate” him. The Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta and the Attorney General KK Venugopal were present and made comments in support of the CJI. The president of the SCBA also supported the judge, and claimed that the publication of the name of an accused in a sexual harassment case violated the law.
The Bar Council of India released a statement in support of the CJI, terming the allegations baseless and false. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley wrote a long post defending the CJI and terming the allegations part of a plan by “institutional disruptors” in the media to destabilise the judiciary.
However, both the SCAORA and the SCBA have taken a different approach. They have not commented on the veracity of the allegations – which cannot be decided on till an inquiry is conducted – and instead focused on the procedure being followed.
SUPREME COURT ADVOCATES-ON-RECORD ASSOCIATION
SUPREME COURT BAR ASSOCIATION
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