Cases of sexual misconduct have embarrassed it
Two recent cases of allegations of sexual misconduct by judges of the Supreme Court have demonstrated the urgent need for the apex court to establish a mechanism where such cases are considered in a fair, transparent and prompt manner. It is good that the Supreme Court has shown alacrity and a desire to move in that direction. We have to wait and watch how swiftly it proceeds with the matter and sets up the system. Such a mechanism will help pre-empt random actions in separate cases of sexual harassment and deal with the issue in a uniform manner. The Supreme Court had five months ago notified its regulations on sexual misconduct on its precincts, but that notification has remained more on paper than put to practice. One reason is that the notifications did not really provide for a mechanism to deal with issues of sexual misconduct by serving and retired judges, but had merely served as a sounding board for a better system. While the proposed mechanism will not seek to preclude the rights of the victims of alleged sexual assaults from approaching the process of law —for instance, filing a regular First Information Report — it will send across the signal that the highest court of the land is committed to providing swift redressal at its own end. If these mechanisms had been in place, the unsavoury play-out of the episode involving retired apex court judge AK Ganguly could have been avoided. The system would have also taken care of the latest incident of sexual misconduct that allegedly involves a retired Supreme Court judge and Chairman of an important tribunal. While nobody is suggesting that sexual harassment by judges of the higher judiciary is ‘rampant' — although activist-lawyers would have the country believe it is — even one case is bad enough and needs to be dealt with through a system that offers the victim and the accused a fair space to present their viewpoints. Perhaps the Supreme Court had not imagined that the issue will some day singe its own judges, when it had set down what has come to be known as the Vishakha guidelines to be enforced by Government and private organisations.
Mr Ganguly had to quit in disgrace as the Chairperson of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission after the Union Cabinet cleared the Presidential reference for action against him based on accusations of sexual misconduct that a law intern had levelled against him. Now, another retired justice faces the brunt of attacks after the alleged victim filed an affidavit in the apex court. The problem is that, in the absence of a mechanism in the Supreme Court to deal with such matters and the reluctance of the alleged victims to file a report with the police — as it has happened in the two instances mentioned here — those facing the allegations are left with a tainted image without the charges being proved against them. This militates against the principles of fair play that the justice system works on.