SC reinstates ex-woman employee who had levelled sexual misconduct allegations against CJI Gogoi

The Supreme Court has reinstated in service a former woman employee who had levelled allegations of sexual misconduct against previous Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, highly placed sources said.

According to the sources, the woman has joined the duty and proceeded on leave. All her arrears too have been cleared, the sources added. The apex courts three-member in-house inquiry committee, headed by Justice SA Bobde (now CJI), had in May this year given a clean chit to the then CJI as it “found no substance” in the allegations levelled against him by the woman.

A Delhi court had in September last year closed a cheating and criminal intimidation case against the woman employee, accepting the closure report filed by the city police after the complainant in the case, Naveen Kumar, a resident of Jhajjar in Haryana, said he had no opposition to the plea and that he did not want to pursue the case.

An FIR for the alleged offences of cheating, criminal intimidation and criminal conspiracy was lodged against the woman on March 3 last year after a complaint was filed by Kumar at the Tilak Marg police station here. Kumar has alleged that the woman had defrauded him of ₹50,000, which he claimed she took as part of a bribe, promising him a job at the Supreme Court.

The woman was arrested by the police on March 10 last year and sent to judicial custody by a court here the next day. She was granted bail on March 12. The woman had in April last year sent a sworn affidavit to the residences of 22 apex court judges levelling allegations against CJI Gogoi. She claimed she was transferred and then terminated from service.