SC panel clean chit to MP HC judge in sexual harassment matter

A Supreme Court panel has given a clean chit to a Madhya Pradesh High Court judge who was accused of sexually harassing a former woman Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ), saying there was no corroborative evidence to support the allegations.
The three-member in-house committee comprised of Allahabad High Court Chief Justice Dhananjaya Chandrachud, Delhi High Court Chief Justice G Rohini and Rajasthan High Court Judge Ajay Rastogi.
According to sources in the apex court, Chief Justice of India H L Dattu has accepted the report of the panel on the allegations against MP HC judge S K Gangele that came to light in August last year.

The panel has observed that evidence was "insufficient" to come to a conclusion holding the judge guilty, the sources said.
It has also observed that the complainant too had not come forth before the committee with a completely honest disclosure with regard to the incidents mentioned by her.
When contacted, senior advocate Indira Jaising, who has taken up the cause of the woman ADSJ, said the panel has arrived at a "wrong conclusion" and has "not bothered" to record the statement of the daughter of the alleged victim.

She said it was "wrong" to junk the grievances of the ADSJ on the ground of absence of corroborative evidence.

She also said that the future course of action would be decided only after deliberations.
In December last year, the apex court had divested Gangele of administrative and supervisory authority in the wake of the allegations against him by the ADSJ.
The court had also quashed a two-judge panel set up by the MP HC Chief Justice to probe the alleged misconduct of Justice Gangele.
The decision had come after the former Gwalior ADSJ, who had resigned alleging sexual harassment by the HC judge, had moved the apex court raising questions over the judicial panel looking into her complaint.