Staffer Who Accused Ex-CJI Ranjan Gogoi Of Sexual Harassment Also Figures In The List of Potential Snoop Targets

Phone numbers of Supreme Court staffer who accused former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi of sexual harassment in April 2019 were selected as potential targets for surveillance by an unidentified Indian agency that is a customer of the Israel-based-NSO Group, reports the Wire. It is reported that three phone numbers belonging to the woman and eight phone numbers belonging to her family members are on the list of 50,000 leaked phone numbers that were allegedly spied upon globally. The numbers are said to have been marked in the same week of April 2019, when the allegations against the former CJI were first reported. As per a report of Amnesty, at least 40 journalists from India were also selected as potential targets between 2017-2021. However, the Central Government today denied all such claims as a malicious attempt to malign the Indian democracy. In 2019, in response to some media reports on sexual harassment allegations against the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi made by a former Supreme Court employee, the SC initiated a suo moto case titled "In Re : Matter Of Great Public Importance Touching Upon The Independence Of Judiciary-Mentioned By Shri Tushar Mehta, Solicitor General of India"Her services as a Junior Court Assistant were terminated in December 2018, following a disciplinary enquiry. The former CJI Gogoi had claimed that there was a bigger plot behind the allegations and, that the people who had instituted the same wanted to "deactivate the office of CJI" and therefore, the independence of the judiciary was under very serious threat. In the suo moto case, a Bench of Justices Arun Misra, RF Nariman and Deepak Gupta ordered that the former Supreme Court Judge, Justice AK Patnaik, would hold an inquiry regarding the alleged conspiracy by fixers and disgruntled employees against the former CJI. In January 2020, the ex-Supreme Court staff who had made the allegations of sexual harassment by former CJI Ranjan Gogoi had been reinstated to services. In March this year, the Supreme Court closed the suo moto proceedings by observing, "two years having passed and the possibility of recovery of electronic records at this distance of time is remote, especially since the scope of the enquiry and the power of the learned Judge is limited, no useful purpose will be served by continuing these proceedings." It also refused to disclose the details of a report submitted by Justice AK Patnaik with respect to the controversy.

Staffer Who Accused Ex-CJI Ranjan Gogoi Of Sexual Harassment Also Figures In The List of Potential Snoop Targets

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