New Delhi: Former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, who in an unprecedented move was on Monday nominated to the upper house of parliament by President Ram Nath Kovind, has said that he will accept the offer of nomination and that his presence in the parliament will “be an opportunity to project the views of the judiciary before the legislature and vice versa”.“I will go to Delhi probably tomorrow. Let me first take oath, then I will speak in detail to the media why I accepted this,” Gogoi told reporters in Guwahati on Tuesday.“I have accepted it since I have a strong conviction that the legislature and the judiciary must at some point of time work together for nation-building,” Gogoi said, according to a report in Pratidin Time.The former chief justice also remained nonchalant about the torrent of criticism against the Narendra Modi-led government’s decision to nominate him to the Rajya Sabha. “Let God give me the strength to have an independent voice in the Parliament’ he said. “I have much to say but let me take the oath in the Parliament and then I shall open up,” he said.Also read: In Unprecedented Move, Modi Government Sends Former CJI Ranjan Gogoi to Rajya SabhaGogoi, who retired in November 2019 after holding the office of the Chief Justice of the highest court for close to 13 months, presided over key cases including the Rafale matter, the reinstatement of CBI director Alok Verma, the Ayodhya dispute.In January 2018, Gogoi was among the four sitting top court judges who had held a first-of-its-kind press conference when Dipak Misra was the Chief Justice. The judges had alleged selective “assignment of cases to preferred judges” and “sensitive cases were being allotted to junior judges” by Justice Dipak Misra.In April 2019, while he was serving as the CJI, Gogoi came under severe criticism for his handling of the sexual harassment allegations made against him by a former Supreme Court staffer.
