Will not sue intern, says Ganguly

IANS/Kolkata

Retired judge A K Ganguly yesterday said he would “never” file a defamation suit against a law intern who accused him of sexual harassment as she was his student.

“I will never do it because she was my student. I will never do it. I would rather go to jail... this is not between two political opponents,” Ganguly told reporters here.

“But if she files a complaint in a court of law, I have to defend myself,” Ganguly said, two days after resigning as chief of West Bengal Human Rights Commission chairman.

“I feel very shattered by these allegations... I never thought such allegations could come from an intern... I am unhappy. They are, if I may say so, unreasonable.”

Asked about the woman’s allegations that he forced her to drink wine in a hotel room where the alleged assault took place in December 2012, Ganguly hit back: “Can you force a glass of wine on a person who does not drink it? She should have refused, if she did not want to have wine.”

Ganguly said the intern could have left the room if she was feeling uncomfortable, but in reality she chose to have dinner with him. “And she made the allegations 11 months after the alleged incident.”

He also denied meeting the intern after that evening.