Supreme Court: While considering an application moved by Dr Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti, former Vice Chancellor, WBNUJS (Respondent) for expunging para Nos. 33 and 34 in X8 v. Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1964 dated 12-9-2025 but particularly, the sentence beginning from ‘Thus’ and ending with ‘personally’ contained in para 34 of the judgment; the Division Bench of Pankaj Mithal and Prasanna B. Varale, JJ., allowed the application thereby deleting the sentence beginning from ‘Thus’ and ending with ‘personally’ contained in Para 34 of the judgment, which required the Respondent to make Supreme Court’s order dated 12-9-2025, a part of his resume.
Background:
While considering X8 (supra) wherein the appellant had challenged the decision of Calcutta High Court’s division Bench reversing the Single Judge Bench’s order directing Local Complaint Committee (LCC) to rehear the appellant’s complaint on an alleged incident of sexual harassment committed by the then Vice Chancellor (VC) of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS); the Division Bench of Pankaj Mithal* and Prasanna B. Varale, JJ., had opined that the High Court’s Division Bench did not commit any error in law in restoring the decision of the LCC that the complaint of the appellant was time barred and liable to be dismissed. However, the Court was of the view that the incidents of alleged sexual harassment on part of NUJS VC may be forgiven but allowed to haunt the wrongdoer forever. Hence the Court directed that the order dated 12-9-2025 to be made part of the VC’s resume.
The impugned Paras in X8 judgment are as follows:
33. It is advisable to forgive the wrongdoer, but not to forget the wrongdoing. The wrong which has been committed against the appellant may not be investigated on technical grounds, but it must not be forgotten.
34. In this view of the matter, we direct that the incidents of alleged sexual harassment on part of respondent no. 1 may be forgiven but allowed to haunt the wrongdoer forever. Thus, it is directed that this judgment shall be made part of the resume of respondent no. 1, compliance of which shall be strictly ensured by him personally.
The Respondent contended that respondent has not been held guilty and therefore, casting a stigma, as referred to in the above sentence amounts to a punishment without holding him to be guilty of any misconduct or an offence.
The Respondent’s contention was opposed by the Appellant on the ground that the present application is unmaintainable and the proper remedy is of the review. The Appellant argued that Court incorporated the above sentence with conscious mind and that there is no reason to expunge the same.
Decision:
Perusing the application, the Court declined to enter into the question of maintainability of the application. The Court clarified that its intention in adding the impugned sentence was only to apprise the public with regard to the incident which had taken place involving the Respondent. However, nonetheless, as there was no finding on merits against him, the Court considered it appropriate to delete the same as probably the incident is under investigation/trial pursuant to an FIR.
Therefore, the Court directed the deletion as applied for by the Respondent stating that the Court had not indicted the Respondent on merits in any manner though the matter may have been argued on merits.
[X v. Dr Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti, Diary No. 54540/2025, order dated 17-11-2025]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For appellant(s) Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Sr. Adv. Ms. Madhavi Divan, Sr. Adv. Mr. Satya Ranjan Swain, Adv. Mr. Vishnu Kant, AOR Mr. Amit Bhandari, Adv. Mr. Ankush Kapoor, Adv. Mr. Kautilya Birat, Adv. Ms. Aandrita Deb, Adv. Ms. Rajnandini, Adv. Mr. Vishwadeep Chandrakar, Adv.
For Respondent(s) Ms. Meenakshi Arora, Sr. Adv. Mr. Rishad Ahmed Chowdhury, AOR Mr. Rohit Das, Adv. Ms. Kishwar Rahman, Adv. Ms. Sohini Sanyal, Adv. Mr. Kunal Chatterji, AOR Ms. Maitrayee Banerjee, Adv. Mr. Rohit Bansal, Adv. Mr. Varij Nayan Mishra, Adv.