A majority of the legal fraternity today welcomed the resignation of former Supreme Court judge AK Ganguly as chairman of West Bengal Human Rights Commission in the wake of allegations of sexually harassing a law intern.
While former Attorney General Soli Sorabjee said Ganguly has done a "good thing" by resigning, senior woman law officer Indira Jaising, who has been spearheading a campaign for his removal as WBHRC chief, was of the view that it was "overdue".
However, some of the lawyers were of the view that Ganguly was under tremendous media pressure and he should have been given a proper course of law to prove his innocence.
Sorabjee and Jaising's views were shared by senior advocate Colin Gonsalves who said it was a right decision by Ganguly to quit and he should have even resigned prior to the findings of the apex court committee came out.
Differing with them, apex court advocate Sanjay Hegde said, "My concern is that only on the basis of unproved allegations, there is a certain desire to launch hefty law into motion before due process of law is initiated." Sorabjee said only yesterday Justice Ganguly had spoken to him about tendering resignation and he has done it on the next day "which is good" and "I think it is a wise decision".
Jaising expressed happiness over the development saying the issue concerned the integrity of the entire institution. She, however, refused to comment on whether the intern would file a police complaint or not and also if police can lodge an FIR against him now.
"I am happy about it. I wish the resignation had come earlier. It would have saved us from investigation into the whole issue but as I have been saying all along that the issue concerned is part of integrity of the entire institution.
"I think the resignation will maintain the dignity of Human Rights Commission and also of the Supreme Court itself as one cannot forget the fact that Justice Ganguly was a judge of the Supreme Court. The resignation was a long overdue," she said.
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