)
Justice (retd.) AK Ganguly Wednesday said he would "never" file a defamation suit against the 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 submitting his resignation from the post of West Bengal Human Rights Commission chairman.
He maintained that the allegations are unreasonable and said he felt shattered by them.
"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."
When quizzed on 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 said.
He also denied meeting the intern after that evening.
"After that meeting... never...her exams were in February or something... then after that she passed out... went out of Calcutta... I possibly saw her fleetingly... but I never met her after the meeting in December."
The judge also maintained that the Vishaka guidelines of the Supreme Court relating to sexual harassment complaints at the workplace did not apply, as the woman was not interning with him.
