Former Central Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu has called for the public release of the report of the Supreme Court’s in-house inquiry committee, which cleared the Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi of sexual harassment allegations raised by a former woman employee of the court.
“This is a very important issue of transparency and good governance in judiciary,” Mr. Acharyulu said in a statement on Tuesday. “Not only must justice be done, it must also be seen to be done.”
On Monday, the three-member committee gave a clean chit to Justice Gogoi, saying it “found no substance” in the allegations. The court later cited the verdict in a 2003 case of Indira Jaising vs Supreme Court of India to hold that the report “is not liable to be made public.”
Apart from issues of principles of natural justice, Mr. Acharyulu said the committee’s verdict raised several concerns about information rights as well. “Especially when the committee is convinced that there was no substance in allegation, it has a duty to give reasons for their decision and to convince the people in general about the correctness of their conclusion,” said Mr. Acharyulu’s statement.
“As per Indira Jaising order, the enquiry into Mysore incident was informal and only to gather some information from colleague judges, but in this case, it is a statutorily mandated inquiry and it is not opinion collection or information gathering,” said the statement. “The CJI in this case was not seeking views of peer judges, but three judges constituted a committee to inquire into an allegation against the CJI… Is it an Official Secret or are there any other grounds for categorising it as ‘confidential’?” Mr. Acharyulu asked.
The 2003 order also pre-dated the Right to Information Act, which only has an exemption for information that would impede the investigation or prosecution process, which would not apply in this case, said Mr. Acharyulu.