COURTESY HT MARCH 17

Ex-CJI Gogoi to enter Rajya Sabha as President’s nominee

HT Correspondent

letters@hindustantimes.com

New Delhi : Exactly four months after his retirement, former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi will enter the Rajya Sabha as a nominated member, with President Ram Nath Kovind nominating him as a member of the Upper House on Monday.

Justice Gogoi will be the first former CJI to become a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha. He will also be the second CJI to become a Rajya Sabha MP after justice Ranganath Misra. Misra was elected as a Congress MP from Odisha. Justice Misra, however, became a Rajya Sabha member in 1998, nearly seven years after his retirement from the Supreme Court in November 1991.

A gazette notification issued by the Union home ministry said: “In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-clause (a) of clause (1) of article 80 of the Constitution of India, read with clause (3) of that article, the President is pleased to nominate Shri Ranjan Gogoi to the Council of States to fill the vacancy caused due to the retirement of one of the nominated members.”

In the Upper House, there are berths for 10 nominated members. KTS Tulsi, nominated in the UPA-era, has finished his term in February 2020 and Gogoi will fill up the vacancy.

The other nominated members of the Upper House include MC Mary Kom, Swapan Dasgupta, Sonal Mansingh and Dr Narendra Jadhav.

CJI Gogoi had retired from office on November 17, 2019. His tenure at the helm was controversial, with a sexual harassment allegation raised against him by a Supreme Court staffer who also claimed she had been terminated from service after she spoke up.

The allegations were dismissed by an internal committee constituted by the Supreme Court.

The complainant was later reinstated in service after the current CJI SA Bobde took over.