News of the day – 24th April 2019

3-judge panel to look into harassment charge against CJI, first meet on Friday

Justice SA Bobde, the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, was Tuesday appointed to conduct an in-house inquiry into the allegations of sexual harassment levelled against Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi.

When contacted, Justice Bobde, who is next to the CJI in seniority, confirmed the development.

He said being the number two judge, the Chief Justice of India has appointed him to look into the allegations of sexual harassment charges levelled by a former woman staff.

Justice Bobde told PTI that he has decided to form a panel by inducting two apex court judges — N V Ramana and Indira Banerjee.

“I decided to have Justice Ramana in the panel as he is next to me in the seniority and Justice Banerjee as she is a woman judge,” Justice Bobde said. He said he has already issued notice to the woman who had written letters to the judges and sworn on affidavit about the alleged sexual harassment.

The first hearing will be conducted on Friday and the apex court secretary general has also been asked to be ready with all documents and materials.

“This is going to be an in-house procedure which does not contemplate representation of advocate on behalf of parties. It is not a formal judicial proceeding,” Justice Bobde said.

He clarified that there is no time frame to complete the inquiry and future course of action will depend on “what comes out of the inquiry” which will be “confidential”.

A three-judge bench headed by CJI on Saturday had held an unprecedented hearing in the wake of allegations made against Justice Gogoi.

Describing the allegations of sexual harassment against him as “unbelievable”, the CJI had convened the extraordinary hearing at the Supreme Court during which he said a larger conspiracy was behind it and he would not stoop so low even to deny these allegations. Justice Gogoi had said some “bigger force” wanted to “deactivate” the office of the CJI.

After the Saturday’s hearing, some lawyers body and jurists had criticised the CJI for constituting the bench comprising him, though he had recused himself in the middle of the hearing leaving it for justices Arun Mishra and Sanjiv Khanna to pass the order.

On Tuesday, the CJI set up a fresh bench comprising justices Mishra, R F Nariman and Deepak Gupta to adjudicate the matter relating to sexual harassment levelled against him. The former woman apex court staffer had levelled the allegations against the CJI which was brought into public domain by some news web portals on April 20.

The woman had worked at Justice Gogoi’s home office in Delhi and the allegations were carried by these news portals based on the affidavit by the woman.

On Saturday, the apex court had said it is leaving it to the “wisdom of media” to show restraint and act responsibly so that independence of judiciary is not affected. The court, however, decided not to issue any gag order.

In her affidavit, the woman described two incidents of alleged molestation, days after Justice Gogoi was appointed CJI last October and her subsequent persecution.

The woman alleged that she was removed from service after she rebuffed his “sexual advances”. She claimed that her husband and brother-in-law, both of whom were head constables, were suspended for a 2012 criminal case that had been mutually resolved.

IPL 2019: KKR ask captain Karthik, Uthappa and 3 others to go on a break

Out of form Kolkata Knight Riders captain Dinesh Karthik, senior batsman Robin Uthappa and three other members of the KKR squad have been asked to take a break by the franchise to clear their heads.

The five cricketers – captain Dinesh Karthik, batsman Robin Uthappa, wicket-keeper Nikhil Naik and pacers Shrikant Munde and Prithvi Raj Yarra – will regroup with the rest of the KKR squad in Kolkata before their next IPL encounter against Rajasthan Royals, reported ESPNCricinfo.

The decision to send the players on a break was taken after Knight Riders suffered their fifth straight loss of the season to find themselves at No. 6 in the IPL points table.

Karthik and Uthappa meanwhile have decided to utilize the time by training with KKR’s academy mentor Abhishek Nayar in Mumbai. Notably, Nayar had played a crucial role in getting Karthik’s career back on track last year.

Both Karthik and Uthappa and have been horribly short of runs this season. Karthik has a tally of 117 runs after ten matches with only one fifty. His captaincy has also come under scrutiny on a number of occasions this season. The decision to send their best power hitter Andre Russell as low as No. 7 in the last few matches have only escalated the matter.

Uthappa, on the other hand, has been struggling with his own issues. While he has managed to score more runs than Karthik, 220 to be exact in nine matches but his strike rate of 119.56 has been a real cause of concern for the two-time champions. Uthappa wasted a lot of deliveries, which proved to be costly in their last home game against RCB. KKR fell 10 short of the 214-run target.

Among the other three cricketers, Naik and Prithvi have played one match each with very little contribution and Mundhe has been on the bench all along.

Interestingly, KKR are not the only franchise to give their players a break. Mumbai Indians were the firsts this season to give their entire squad a four-day break before their next match.

Source – Hindustan Times

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