Supreme Court’s Suo Motu Case for Probing Sexual Harassment Allegations Against Ex CJI Ranjan Gogoi Listed for Hearing Today

The Supreme Court's suo-motu case registered in the year 2019 against the then Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi for sexual harassment allegations is listed for hearing today after 1 year and 9 months. Today this case will be heard by the Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian.

The Case titled "In Re: Matter Of Great Public Importance Touching Upon The Independence Of Judiciary" had caused quite a stir after Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi himself had sat on the Bench to hear the matter.

This case was last heard on 25th of April, 2019 by a Bench of Justices Arun Mishra, Rohinton Fali Nariman and Deepak Gupta wherein the Bench decided to investigate whether there was a larger conspiracy involved to frame the CJI and tarnish the image of the judiciary. This view came after Advocate Utsav Bains presented few affidavits to the court in sealed cover purportedly containing sensitive information about such conspiracy 

After that the Bench had appointed retired Supreme Court judge, Justice AK Patnaik to hold an enquiry into the allegations raised. In October 2019, Justice AK Patnaik submitted his report to the Court and the matter was never listed for hearing till date.

In April 2019 four news outlets published details of a complaint filed by a Supreme Court staffer.

She alleged that CJI Gogoi has sexually harassed her in October 2018 when she was working as a Junior Court Assistant. In a representation sent out to Supreme Court judges, she had detailed these allegations while seeking the initiation of an inquiry against him.

Court registered the suo motu case based on the publication of allegations.

Initially, the case was heard by a Bench which comprised of Justice Gogoi himself. He outrightly rejected the allegations levelled against him.

This matter was later sent to another 3-judge Bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra to examine the larger issue of alleged conspiracy raised by Utsav Bains.

Meanwhile, a court-appointed committee constituted to look into the allegations had given a clean chit to Justice Gogoi.