SC declines plea filed in 2018 seeking inquiry into Ranjan Gogoi's conduct citing retirement

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday declined to entertain a plea seeking a three-judge panel to probe into the conduct of former Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, who is now a Rajya Sabha MP, as a judge.

A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra and comprising Justices B.R. Gavai and Krishna Murari observed that the plea was not pressed for hearing since last year and it has now become remediless, as Justice Gogoi has already retired.

The plea was filed nearly two years ago seeking an in-house probe into the alleged commission and omission by the former Chief Justice, during his tenure as a judge in the top court.

The bench noted Gogoi has demitted the office and the plea has become infructuous. Justice Mishra observed that the person has now demitted the office, and nothing remains in this writ petition.

The bench told the petitioner Arun Ramchandra Hublikar that it is not inclined to entertain the plea and queried why did not the petitioner press it for hearing earlier?

The petitioner contended before the bench that he had met the secretary general of the apex court in connection with the listing of his plea, but it was not listed.

In 2019, A 35-year-old woman who used to work as a junior court assistant at the Supreme Court of India wrote to 22 judges of the court on April 19, alleging that Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had made sexual advances on her at his residence office on October 10 and 11, 2018.

In response to questions sent by the media to the Chief Justice of India, the Secretary General of the Supreme Court of India sent an email denying the allegations, calling them "completely and absolutely false and scurrilous".

In the affidavit, the woman said after she rebuffed the Chief Justice of India, she was moved out of his residence office, where she had been posted in August 2018. Two months later, on December 21, she was dismissed from service. One of the three grounds for dismissal, as detailed in the inquiry report, was that she had taken casual leave for one day without approval.

However on May 6, an in-house committee of the Supreme Court ruled there was "no substance" to the charges of sexual harassment against Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi.

On May 7, protestors were being rounded up by the police for demonstrating against the committee's decision.

In November, Justice Gogoi led bench decided the Babri Masjid land title dispute in favour of the government. He retired as the Chief Justice of India on November 17, 2019 and was nominated to Rajya Sabha later.