Conspiracy to force CJI to resign: Lawyer

New Delhi, April 22

Amid raging controversy over allegations of sexual harassment levelled by a dismissed SC employee against CJIRanjan Gogoi, an advocate today claimed that there was a conspiracy to force the CJI to resign by “framing him” in a false case.

The claim was made by advocate Utsav Singh Bains in an affidavit filed in the case before the SC and said he was offered Rs1.5 crore by one Ajay to represent a former SC woman employee and arrange a presser against the CJI at the Press Club of India here.

He, however, did not disclose his source of information. “The deponent will not share any names of the sources mentioned herein under any circumstances as these were privileged communications under the advocates Act,” he said.

The SC had taken it up on Saturday as a matter of “great public importance touching upon the independence of judiciary”. “The deponent (Bains) wishes to bring to notice of the court a serious matter of a conspiracy to make the CJI resign by framing him in a false case of sexual harassment,” he said in the affidavit.

Bains said he was shocked to hear the allegations and was willing to represent the complainant. “But when Ajay further narrated the entire sequence of events and facts of the case, the deponent was not convinced and found several loopholes in Ajay’s version of events,” the affidavit said.

The lawyer then sought an interaction with the complainant to verify the claims, it said, adding that the meeting was denied, which gave rise to suspicion. “That, when the deponent refused outright the said bribe of Rs50 lakh offered by Ajay to frame the CJI, Ajay then increased the sum to Rs1.5 crore to the deponent following which the deponent asked him to immediately leave his office,” the affidavit said. — TNS