Left Front undecided over Ganguly's resignation

The Left Front Thursday said sexual harassment allegations against former Supreme Court judge A.K. Ganguly "might be a part of retribution by those aggrieved by his verdicts".

"Ever since his verdict in the 2G spectrum case, there have been attempts at retribution against Ganguly by a nexus of industrialists and politicians. I cannot say if the current scenario is part of those attempts," Left Front chairman Biman Bose said.

In 2012, an apex court bench of Justice Ganguly and Justice G.S. Singhvi quashed 122 2G licences issued by then union telecom minister A. Raja in 2008.

While there has been a nationwide clamour for Ganguly to step down as chairman of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission, Bose dubbed his resignation from the post as a "trifling issue".

"It is not easy for me to say if he should resign," Bose said.

Ganguly has been indicted for unwelcome behaviour by an apex court panel probing the allegations of sexual harassment made by a law intern.

Ganguly Monday wrote to Chief Justice of India P. Sathasivam denying that he had sexually harassed the intern and alleged there was a palpable design to malign him because of the "judgments he had given against powerful quarters".

Meanwhile, the city-based National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) Thursday disassociated itself from Ganguly, an honorary professor at the institution.

"Following a demand by faculty members, NUJS Vice Chancellor P.I. Bhatt has agreed to disassociate itself from Ganguly until he is exonerated from all the charges," university spokesperson and faculty Ruchira Goswami said.

She also said the executive council of university will meet early next year to decide on removal of Ganguly as a professor from the institute.