Demanding Justice AK Ganguly to step down as Chairman of West Bengal Human Rights Commission, the BJP on Friday said it was now incumbent on the Supreme Court to ensure that the law must take its own course.
The Opposition party stated that the “administrative decision” of the Supreme Court — no follow-up action could be taken against the retired judge facing allegations of sexually harassing an intern — was being closely watched by all citizens and that it ‘cannot escape’ from its Judicial responsibility.
“This reasoning of the full court fails the test of conscience. Mahatma Gandhi had said, ‘There is a higher court than the courts of justice, and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts’. Is the Court dealing with a former Judge, who currently holds the office as the Chairman, Human Rights Commission, West Bengal in the same way as it would have dealt with any other person who is or has been the holder of an exalted officeIJ” leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley wrote on Facebook.
Jaitley argued that the standard that the Supreme Court follows for every holder of high office “must apply even more sternly” to a sitting or former judge of the court.
“When it is brought to the notice of the court that persons in high position have either abused their office, indulged in conduct unbecoming of the office, and the law enforcement agencies are likely to be overawed by the personality of the accused, the Supreme Court devised a concept of a ‘continuing mandamus’. The court nudges the investigation into action, and oversees the fact that the holder of the public office is to be dealt with in a manner as mandated by law. This is precisely what the bench of Justice GS Singhvi and Justice AK Ganguly did in the 2G Spectrum case.
Jaitley stated that it was now incumbent on the SC to ensure that the law must take its own course. “Be you ever so high, as the law is above you, the Supreme Court has repeatedly told us. It must apply the same yardstick to itself. If it has found a former Judge of the Supreme Court prima facie committed an offence, it cannot follow an escapist route and hold that on the administrative side it has no jurisdiction,” Jaitley said.
Claiming that the SC was fully empowered on the Judicial side to ensure that the law takes its own course, Jaitley said the court ‘cannot escape’ from its Judicial responsibility. “It must place the case before a bench of the court on the Judicial side which must monitor the investigations in order to ensure Justice and fairness. Justice Ganguly must face the investigations as an ordinary citizen stepping down from the office he holds,” he demanded.