After weeks of silence, the left Front seemed to take sides in the high-profile law intern harassment case with CPI(M) Politburo member Biman Bose on Friday saying retired Supreme Court Judge Justice Ashok Ganguly was a victim of conspiracy hatched by vested interests hurt by his judgements as an apex court judge.
Referring to Justice Ganguly’s verdict in the multi-crore 2G scam case Bose who is also the West Bengal left Front chairman said he was not sure whether the accusations of sexually harassing a former law intern were the upshot of his judgment in the 2G case.
“The matter is a severe one. The corporate lobby is unhappy with the 2G verdict. So I cannot say whether he is being framed as a part of it,” the Bengal State secretary of the CPI(M) said when
asked to comment on the law intern case.
Justice Ganguly accused of a sexually “unwelcome” behaviour with a law intern when she came to help him with his work at a five star hotel in Delhi about a year ago had also a few days ago raised similar issues in his letter to the Chief Justice of India a copy of which was marked to President Pranab Mukherjee.
The Marxists who had thus far held back their opinion tended to come forward on Friday even as Bose reasoned, “since the day Justice Ganguly delivered the 2G verdict hitting the interests of the corporate houses and various people in the Government hard attempts have been made to malign him.”
Justice Ganguly who is currently the Chairman of West Bengal Human Rights Commission had also passed certain adverse orders of human rights violations against the Trinamool Congress Government.
In two of his orders he asked the State Government to pay damages to a farmer for ‘wrongful arrest’ at the behest of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and a college professor who was arrested by the police for putting a cartoon depicting her on the Net.
Incidentally the Bengal ruling party has been most vociferous in demanding his resignation with the Chief Minister herself writing two letters to the President to remove Justice Ganguli on the law intern case.
Meanwhile, an assistant registrar of the prestigious West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata was on Thursday arrested on charges of sexually harassing a colleague.
Incidentally Justice Ganguly who has also been an honorary professor of the WBNUJS too was on Thursday removed from his post by the University authorities.
Curiously the assistant registrar Siddhartha Guha was arrested even as the police acted on a complaint lodged against him by the victim six months before. “A complaint alleging sexual harassment including sending indecent emails was lodged in July against him. In pursuance to that we arrested him on Thursday,” DCP Arnab Ghosh said.
The accused had been booked under several offences including defamation, criminal intimidation and outraging the modesty of a woman, Ghosh said.