Sexual harrasment charges against WB Governor: SC to examine constitutional immunity

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday decided to examine a plea by a woman employee of West Bengal Raj Bhavan seeking a direction to the state police to investigate allegations of sexual harrasment made against against Governor C V Ananda Bose, claiming she has been rendered "remediless" due to the constitutional immunity granted to the Governor.

A bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra sought assistance from Attorney General R Venkatramani to consider the issue.

The court issued notice to the West Bengal and also allowed the woman to implead Union government as respondent to her petition.

Senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for the petitioner, Article 361 can't be treated as a bar against the investigation. He said the probe can't wait and the evidences were to be collected urgently in the case.

In her plea, the petitioner also asked the court to frame guidelines and fix qualification to the extent of the immunity enjoyed by the constitutional figure under Article 361 of the Constitution.

Notably, as per Article 361 (2) of the Constitution, no criminal proceedings can be instituted or continued against the President, or the Governor of a state, in any court during their term of office.

She stated that such powers cannot be understood to be absolute so as to enable the Governor to do acts which are illegal or which strike at the root of Part III of the Constitution.

She insisted that the immunity cannot impair the powers of the police to investigate the offence or even naming the perpetrator in the complaint/FIR, despite specific averments to that effect.

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Despite writing a complaint to Raj Bhavan highlighting her grievances, she claimed she was only subjected to humiliation in the form of inaction by concerned authorities, and being made a mockery of in the media and termed as a political tool, without any safeguards for her self-respect.

The petitioner maintained no person is above the law and under the garb of the constitutional immunity, the Governor is by no means permitted to act inappropriately and inflict gender violence when every other citizen of the country is prohibited to do the same.

“Making the petitioner, a victim in the present matter a liar, while ensuring that the accused Governor, proceeds to himself give his own self a clean chit. Such unfettered exercise of power shall set a wrong precedent leaving sexual victims remediless which shall be in complete violation of the constitutional scheme,” the plea said.

She further contended the immunity under Article 361 (1) of the Constitution, does not take away the power of the apex court to examine the validity of the action including on the ground of ‘malafides’.

“Therefore, considering the interpretation of Article 361 of the Constitution with respect to civil immunity and its limitations, an analogy can also be drawn so as to interpret the criminal immunity, under the said Article,” it added.

The petitioner filed a complaint on May 2, 2024 to the Officer in Charge, Raj Bhavan, Kolkata on the basis of the instances, accusing the Governor of sexually harassing her on the pretext of offering her a better job.