Assam: APW President Abhijeet Sharma Files Rs. 1 Crore Lawsuit Against Ex-CJI Ranjan Gogoi

GUWAHATI: Abhijeet Sharma, President of the Assam Public Works NGO, has filed an Rs. 1 crore defamation case against Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi for making false statements about Sharma in his autobiography "Justice for the Judge."

Abhijeet Sharma claimed that Ranjan Gogoi made defamatory allegations about him, harming his reputation. Meanwhile, the APW President launched a lawsuit against Rupa Publications India Pvt Ltd, the publisher of Ranjan Gogoi's book.

Sharma has filed a Rs 1 crore lawsuit seeking compensation for the damage to his reputation caused by the ex-CJI's bogus writing.

On December 8, 2021, the autobiography of former 46th Chief Justice of India of the Supreme Court Ranjan Gogoi was published, detailing his journey from boyhood in Dibrugarh to becoming Chief Justice of India.

In contrast, Assam Public Works, the NGO that pioneered the drive to update the 1951 NRC, filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court in 2020, claiming that the NRC not only excluded 'indigenous' people but also contained over 80 lakh 'foreigners'.

The NGO also claimed that "fake certificates and legacies were used," "names of doubtful voters (DV) were included," and a "huge level of corruption was committed by Hajela and his aides during the NRC's updating process."

It also claims that Hajela "appointed retired government servants as his advisors and provided them with new vehicles, handsome package salaries, and corruption occurred in the process (sic)."

The Supreme Court nominated Hajela, who belongs to Madhya Pradesh and a 1995 batch IAS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, as the NRC coordinator in 2019 to oversee the process of finalising and publishing Assam NRC data.

However, Ranjan Gogoi in his biography ‘Justice for the Judge’ wrote that, “At the local level, personal attack on the SCNR and veiled attacks on the judges, particularly me, by local politicians and specifically by Abhijit Sharma, the president of Assam Public Works (petitioner in W.P(C) No.274 of 2009) left us (the Bench) convinced that orders should be passed to protect Hajela from undue harassment and calculated harm.”

It further elaborated, “The Bench passed the order dated 18 October 2019 for his deputation on inter-cadre transfer to Madhya Pradesh, his home state. Subsequent events like filing of FIRs against Hajela and other NRC officials; allegations of corruption and threats to order CBI probes besides enormous misinformation to the media and wide publicity thereof leave me convinced that the Bench was thoroughly justified in passing the rather unusual order for the inter-cadre transfer of Hajela by invoking Article 142 of the Constitution.”

Meanwhile, in the year 2020, the Former Chief Justice of India (CJI) took oath as Rajya Sabha member and he was nominated by then President Ram Nath Kovind.

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