After Ayodhya Judgment, Took Judges For Dinner, Shared Bottle Of Wine: Ex-CJI Ranjan Gogoi

“In the evening, I took the judges for dinner to Taj Mansingh Hotel. We ate Chinese food and shared a bottle of wine, the best available there. I picked the tab, being the eldest,” he writes.

New Delhi: Former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi has in his autobiography revealed that he took his colleagues for a dinner to Hotel Taj Mansingh after delivering a unanimous verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case on November 9, 2019, and ordered their best wine.

“After the judgement, the Secretary General organised a photo session in the judges’ gallery outside Court No 1, below the Ashoka Chakra,” Justice Gogoi writes in his autobiography titled ‘Justice for the Judge: An Autobiography’.

“In the evening, I took the judges for dinner to Taj Mansingh Hotel. We ate Chinese food and shared a bottle of wine, the best available there. I picked the tab, being the eldest,” he writes.

The ex-CJI also shared his views on the collegium’s decision to withdraw its recommendation to appoint Justice Akil Kureshi as Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh High Court and appoint him instead as Chief Justice of Tripura High Court.

“On 10 May 2019, Justice Kureshi was recommended by the collegium for appointment as Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. In the process of consultation, the law minister in his letter dated 23 August 2019 expressed the objection of the Union government to the recommendation,” Justice Gogoi writes.

“The objection was based on a negative perception flowing from certain judicial orders passed by Justice Kureshi. It would have done nobody any good if the objection of the government had come into the public domain,” he adds.

Justice Gogoi, who is now a Rajya Sabha MP, also writes that the collegium had decided in principle to recommend two High Court judges - Justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Rajendra Menon - as Supreme Court judges but did not proceed as the discussions were leaked to the public.

“Though we had agreed on them at the collegium meeting, the names of Justices Nandrajog and Menon had not been sent to the law minister as per procedure. In fact, the letter to the law minister was yet to be drafted. Having talked to Justice (Madan) Lokur, I decided to keep the matter in abeyance,” he writes.

The former CJI in a chapter titled “Supreme Allegations and My Quest For The Truth” writes about the sexual harassment allegations levelled against him by an apex court staffer.