ASG makes public excerpts of law intern's affidavit against

Excerpts of an affidavit by a law intern, who has accused former Supreme Court judge A K Ganguly of sexual harassment, have been made public in an unusual step by Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaising, sparking off fresh demands for his resignation as chairman of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission (WBHRC).

In her affidavit to a three-judge panel set up by Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam to go into her allegation that Justice Ganguly had sexually harassed her in a hotel room on December 24 last year, the intern has desribed in detail his alleged behaviour when she had gone to assist him in his work.

Justice Ganguly has strongly denied the allegations and refused to step down as WBHRC chief.

Jaising said today that she had made the excepts public with the "full support" of the intern and If Justice Ganguly refused to resign, then the process should be initiated for his removal by the President of India. She has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in this regard.

The ASG said she would like state "very unambiguously that whatever I am doing, I am doing with her (intern's) complete cooperation and keeping her in the loop and I would never ever make a document like this public unless I had her full support".

She was responding to a question whether she should have gone public with the excerpts when the intern herself has chosen not to do so and neither has she filed a police complaint in this regard.

The intern had given her statement to the apex court panel besides giving to it affidavits of witnesses to whom she had spoken immediately after the incident.

The panel had video recorded Justice Ganguly's statement in which he denied the allegation of any sexual harassment.

However, the panel had indicted him by holding that the statement of the intern, both wirtten and oral, had prima facie disclosed "an act of unwelcome behaviour (unwelcome berbal/non-verbal conduct of sexual nature)" by Justice Ganguly with her in the Le Meridien hotel room approximately between 8 pm and 10.30 pm.