dhananjay.mahapatra@timesgroup.com

NEW DELHI: Justice A K Ganguly , the retired Supreme Court judge who heads West Bengal Human Rights Commission , was indicted on Thursday by a three-judge committee, which found a ring of truth in a law graduate's allegation that he had subjected her to "unwelcome sexual behaviour " in December last year.The fact-finding committee comprising Justices R M Lodha, H L Dattu and Ranjana P Desai said in its report, "The statement of the law graduate, both written and oral, prima facie discloses an act of unwelcome behaviour (verbal/non-verbal conduct of sexual nature) by Justice (retd) A K Ganguly with her in hotel Le Meridien on December 24, 2012 approximately between 8 pm and 10.30 pm."We have carefully scrutinized the statements of the law graduate, affidavits of her three witnesses and the statement of Justice Ganguly. It appears to the committee that in the evening of December 24, 2012, the law graduate had visited hotel Le Meridien, where Justice Ganguly was staying, to assist him in his work. This fact is not denied by Justice Ganguly in his statement."However, Justice Ganguly, who retired from the Supreme Court on February 3, 2012, will not face any further proceedings in the SC.Chief Justice P Sathasivam, to whom the panel had submitted its report on November 28, passed an order on Thursday saying since the apex court had no administrative control over a retired judge, "no further follow up action is required by this court"."Considering the fact that the said intern was not an intern on the rolls of the Supreme Court and that the concerned judge had already demitted office on account of superannuation on the date of incident, no further follow up action is required by this court," the CJI said.The CJI ordered that a copy of the committee's report be sent to the law graduate and Justice Ganguly. This will put the ball back in the law graduate's court as she will have to decide whether to lodge an FIR against Justice Ganguly for sexual harassment or put the matter to rest having been vindicated on her allegations against the retired judge.The CJI said he had promptly constituted a three-judge inquiry panel on November 12 because that day's TOI had run a story headlined "SC judge harassed me, says intern", which gave an impression that allegations were made against a sitting judge.The girl, who graduated from National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS), Kolkata this year, in her affidavit before the fact-finding committee had narrated the sequence of events leading to sexual harassment by Justice Ganguly on December 24 last year, at a time when Delhi had erupted in protest against Nirbhaya gang-rape incident.She claimed that Justice Ganguly repeatedly requested her to come to Le Meridien in central Delhi to help as a research assistant when he, as the one-man committee appointed by All India Football Federation (AIFF), was inquiring into I-League violence during a match between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal clubs.The girl had alleged that after AIFF officials left the room, Justice Ganguly offered her wine while himself having a few glasses, saying it was customary to drink wine on the eve of Christmas.She then detailed how the retired judge made advances towards her despite her clear and vocal disapproval of his conduct. She said after she rushed out of the hotel room, the retired judge followed her down to the lobby uttering apologies.Justice Ganguly did not deny her visit to the hotel room in his statement before the committee but denied sexually harassing her. He had reacted to the charges with "shock and disbelief" and had questioned the accusations.The law graduate had on November 6 first posted in her blog that a "retired judge", who was "old enough to be her grandfather", harassed her in a hotel room in Delhi. After her blog post in the 'Journal of Indian Law and Society', she had reiterated her charges against the retired judge on November 11 in an interview to the website 'Legally India'.