The law intern, who accused Justice (retd) A.K. Ganguly of sexual harassment, has taken exception to his political conspiracy charge to defame him and said she will decide on pursuing appropriate criminal proceedings against him at an appropriate time.
In a blog posted on Legally India website, she referred to the former Supreme Court judge’s letter to Chief Justice of India P. Sathasivam describing the whole incident as a “revenge for his past judgments,” and said, “At this stage, I believe that anyone claiming that my statements are false is showing disrespect not just to me but also to the Supreme Court.”
(When contacted in Kolkata, Justice Ganguly, now chairperson of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission, said he did not wish to comment on the intern’s remarks.)
In his letter to the CJI on Monday, Justice Ganguly said: “I never harassed, nor did I make any unwelcome advances to any female intern. The very suggestion of it, to say the least, is out of tune with my personal conduct.” Justice Ganguly, who expressed distress at the manner in which the entire thing happened in the Supreme Court, said, “The subsequent events clearly seem to suggest that there is a concerted move to tarnish my image as I had the unfortunate duty of rendering certain judgments against powerful interests. I may point out that, despite odds, I judged the issues without fear or favour and if that triggers a collateral attack on me then it poses a threat to the independence of the judiciary.”
Reacting to this, the intern said: “Those who have been spreading rumours and politicising the issue, are doing so out of prejudice and malice to obfuscate the issue and escape scrutiny and accountability.”
While the intern had claimed, in her affidavit filed before a three-judge probe panel, that Justice Ganguly had made sexual advances to her at a hotel room in Kolkata in December last, Justice Ganguly denied the charge and said, “it was a cordial meeting followed by dinner.”
