New Delhi: A Delhi court on Wednesday said it will hear on May 23 the police plea to cancel the bail of a former Supreme Court employee, who has accused Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi of sexual harassment, in a cheating and criminal intimidation case.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Manish Khurana adjourned the matter after noting that the complainant in the case, Naveen Kumar, has not been served a copy of the police plea.
"The instant application seeking cancellation of bail of the accused has been moved by the crime branch on the basis of complaint given to the police...The complainant was ordered to be summoned but he remained unserved. In the interest of justice, let the complainant be served," the judge said.
Advocate V K Ohri, appearing for the former Supreme Court employee, moved an application seeking the release of her mobile phone, CPU and CCTV recorder which are with the Delhi Police.
The plea was however withdrawn with the liberty that it would be moved at an appropriate stage. The police sought cancellation of the bail granted to the woman on March 12, after the complainant claimed that he was being threatened by the woman and her associates.
The FIR for alleged offences of cheating, criminal intimidation and criminal conspiracy was lodged against the woman on March 3, after a complaint was received at Tilak Marg Police Station here by Kumar, a resident of Jhajjar in Haryana.
Kumar has alleged that the former apex court employee had defrauded him of Rs 50,000, which he claimed she took as part of a bribe, promising him a job at the court in exchange.
He claimed that in June 2017, he met the woman through a common friend, Mansha Ram, regarding his employment and she had told him she was a personal assistant of a judge in the Supreme Court and her husband was also an officer.
He said the woman claimed she had good contacts and could get him employed as process server or as a class-IV employee in the Supreme Court in about one-and-a-half month time, for which she allegedly demanded Rs 10 lakh from him.
"On her inducement, the complainant paid an advance of Rs 50,000 to her in cash in the presence of Ram in the Supreme Court complex. Till three months, he did not receive any information regarding his employment. Thereafter, he along with Ram again met the woman at Supreme Court complex.
"She told him that the employment will take more time and he should not visit her in the Supreme Court and threatened him to implicate in some false case," the police had said in the application seeking cancellation of her bail.
Kumar said he remained in touch with Ram, who died in January this year due to illness. He approached the police claiming that he has been cheated of Rs 50,000 by the woman on the pretext of being given employment in the apex court and that she neither returned his money nor got him employed.
He alleged the woman and her husband threatened his life if he demanded the money back. During the investigation, the woman was arrested by the police on March 10 and was sent to judicial custody by a court here the next day. She was granted bail on March 12.
On March 14, the investigation into the case was taken up by the crime branch of Delhi Police and the complainant addressed an application to the DCP that he was being threatened by the woman and her associates.
The police also told the court in its application that the SSP of Jhajjar has been sent a letter to provide adequate protection to the complainant. The woman last Friday sent a sworn affidavit to the residences of 22 apex court judges which became public on Saturday.
In her affidavit, she has described two incidents of alleged molestation by the CJI. She alleged both the incidents took place in October 2018, within days of CJI Gogoi being appointed to the post.
This allegations prompted the Supreme Court to hold an extraordinary hearing on Saturday morning.
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