New Delhi: Lawyer sexually harassed by SC judge

New Delhi: A young lawyer has unpacked a controversy with her revelation that she was sexually harassed by a reputed Supreme Court judge she interned with last December, at a time angry protests had erupted across the nation over Delhi gang-rape.

The woman, who graduated from Kolkata’s National University of Juridical Sciences, says she was harassed by the judge in a hotel room. She says that the judge retired recently.

She revealed the incident in a blog on November 6 for ‘Journal of Indian Law and Society’.

“In Delhi at that time, interning during the winter vacations of my final year in University, I dodged police barricades and fatigue to go to the assistance of a highly reputed, recently retired Supreme Court judge whom I was working under during my penultimate semester. For my supposed diligence, I was rewarded with sexual assault (not physically injurious, but nevertheless violating) from a man old enough to be my grandfather,” she said in the blog.

“I won’t go into the gory details, but suffice it to say that long after I’d left the room, the memory remained, in fact, still remains, with me.”

Repeating the allegations in an interview to the ‘Legally India’ publication, the woman said she had heard of three other cases of sexual harassment by the same judge, and of at least four other girls who have faced harassment from other judges.

The lawyer, currently a fellow with ‘Natural Justice: Lawyers for Communities and the Environment’, said she kept silent because of the judge’s high position, but decided to speak out “as I felt I had a responsibility to ensure that other young girls were not put in a similar situation”.

She writes in her blog, “All the talk during that time was of stricter punishment, of baying for the blood of ‘creepy’ men. Five years of law school had taught me to look to the law for all solutions – even where I knew that the law was hopelessly inadequate – and my reluctance to wage a legal battle against the judge left me feeling cowardly.”

There is speculation whether the woman’s case will be taken up by the anti-sexual harassment committee of the Supreme Court headed by a sitting judge, which was set up in July. There is no formal complaint from her yet. (NDTV)