No evidence but can’t rule out conspiracy against Gogoi: SC

The report prepared by former SC judge Justice (Retd) AK Patnaik was submitted to a bench of Justices SK Kaul, AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian.

An enquiry by a retired Supreme Court judge into a possible larger conspiracy hatched to defame former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi in a sexual harassment complaint leveled by his own staffer has found no corroborative evidence to believe such allegations.

Supreme Court of India (File photo)

However, the former judge relied on a letter written by the chief of Intelligence Bureau to acknowledge possibility of a conspiracy by those who were disgruntled by the former CJI’s judicial ruling on “serious tough” issues such as the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and tough steps taken by him on the administrative side to streamline the Registry.

The report prepared by former SC judge Justice (Retd) AK Patnaik was submitted to a bench of Justices SK Kaul, AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian. The one-man enquiry committee headed by Justice Patnaik was asked to examine the allegations of a lawyer Utsav Singh Bains who filed an affidavit before the Court giving details of a larger conspiracy by a lobby involving fixers, corporate accused and disgruntled judges and politicians. The Committee was not to go into the merits of the sexual harassment complaint leveled against the former CJI.

In April 2019, the Supreme Court took suo moto cognizance of these allegations and constituted Justice Patnaik Committee to examine its veracity. The Director, Intelligence Bureau, Commissioner of Delhi Police and Director, Central Bureau of Investigation were asked to assist the Committee in its work.

The bench after going through the exhaustive report, said, “The report has also taken note of the limited investigative powers and access to records which it had and based on those materials and evidence before him, it has been opined that it is not possible to find corroborative material qua the allegations of Utsav Singh Bains made in the affidavit.

Simultaneously, the bench noted, “The report also acknowledges that the existence of a conspiracy cannot be completely ruled out and this has been so opined as Justice AK Patnaik has not been able to obtain various records including electronic records of Whatsapp, Telegram etc.”

The possible conspiracy theory was attributed in the report to a letter written by IB Director on July 5, 2019 which stated “on account of the then Chief Justice of India taking serious tough decisions like in the case relating to National Register of Citizens (NRC), there was strong reason to believe that persons who were unhappy with those decisions hatched a conspiracy against the then Chief Justice of India.”

The report also made a reference to certain tough administrative decisions taken to streamline the process in the Registry. The bench told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta who alone appeared in the suo moto proceeding, “We are of the view that two years having passed and the possibility of recovery of electronic records at this distance of time is remote, especially since the scope of the enquiry and the power of the learned Judge is limited, no useful purpose will be served by continuing these proceedings.” The Court closed the suo moto case and directed the enquiry report to be placed back in sealed cover.

The suo moto proceedings were initiated by a bench headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice Arun Mishra. During the hearing on Thursday, the bench noted the fact that with the lapse of time, even the in-house proceeding on the complaint against the then CJI had concluded. This in-house Committee was headed by the present CJI, Justice SA Bobde along with two other judges – Justices Indu Malhotra and Indira Banerjee. In November 2019, Justice Gogoi retired and three months later, the Supreme Court staffer who leveled the sexual harassment allegation was reinstated into service.