In its report submitted to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) on Thursday, a Supreme Court panel named Justice (Retired) AK Ganguly as the judge alleged to have sexually harassed a law intern.
Without making the contents of the report public, an official statement released by the three-judge panel constituted by CJI said, “Statement of law intern was recorded. She has also submitted three affidavits. Statement of Justice (Retired) AK Ganguly has also been recorded.”
The panel comprising Justices RM lodha, Hl Dattu and Ranjana Prakash Desai held seven meetings before submitting the report to CJI.
Reacting to the development, Justice Ganguly said he was “shocked and shattered”. later in the day he spoke to several news channels explaining that the committee had called him and when confronted with the allegation, he denied the same.
“I am denying everything. I have told the committee that all the allegations leveled by the intern are wrong. I don’t know how such allegations have
been leveled against me,” said Justice Ganguly.
A TV channel reported him as saying, “If anybody feels uncomfortable to work with me, she was free to leave,” pointing to inconsistency in the victim’s statement suggesting she had respect for him (judge) and there was no rancour against him.
He complained that he was given no opportunity to rebut the allegations of the victim and till date he was not aware of what the victim stated in the affidavit filed before the panel.
The victim had brought the incident to the fore by posting a blog about her ordeal last December when the country erupted over the shocking gang-rape of a Delhi girl in a moving bus.
The victim prayed to the Committee to keep her testimony confidential. The blog account said the incident occurred in a Delhi hotel room. Although she stated there was no physical assault, the incident shook her faith in the judge who was the age of her grandfather.
Justice Ganguly had retired in February 2012 following which he became Chairperson of West Bengal Human Rights Commission. At the time of interning with Justice Ganguly, the girl was a student of National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata.
Putting up a defence before TV channels, Justice Ganguly accepted the girl came to the hotel room and even had dinner with him.