In the wake of fresh revelations in the sexual assault case concerning a law intern and former Supreme Court judge A K Ganguly, all political parties have raised the pitch seeking his resignation from the chairmanship of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission.
Excerpts of an affidavit by the law intern, who has accused Ganguly of sexual harassment, have been made public by Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaising, demanding his resignation. The woman had submitted the affidavit before the three-member committee set up by the Chief Justice of India to probe the allegation.
Responding to demands that the Union government needs to take action against Ganguly, Law Minister Kapil Sibal urged the Supreme Court to take “stern steps, just like they do when it is an ordinary person” against the former judge.
Trinamool Congress, which is the ruling party in West Bengal, also increased the pressure seeking Ganguly’s resignation.
TMC general secretary Mukul Roy said, “He should resign, or else President Pranab Mukherjee should remove him.” He angrily pointed out that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had written to the President twice seeking strong action against Ganguly.
Fully supporting the TMC demand, senior BJP leader and ace lawyer Arun Jaitley said: “Since these are not untested allegations, he should resign as chief of the WBHRC to protect the dignity of the office. There is reason to believe, on the basis of the report of the three judges, that an offence could have been committed. Justice Ganguly is like Caesar’s wife, must be above suspicion.” Throwing the ball back at the apex court, he said, “If it were a case of a prominent politician rather than a former judge, would the judicial institutions have washed their hands of or would they have monitored the investigations?”
For her part, the ASG defended her decision to go public. Asserting that she took the girl’s permission before doing so, Jaising said: “I took the decision only after I realised that powerful sections of society were coming out in the public domain to support Ganguly, and that people were asking ‘What did he do?’... Given that he is refusing to resign, I felt compelled to put the girl’s affidavit in the public domain.”
Ganguly, meanwhile, asked how a confidential statement could be made public. “That is supposed to be confidential as it was given before an SC committee. How can it come out in the open?” he said.
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