The Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to hear a law graduate’s complaint of sexual harassment against NGT Chairman and former Supreme Court judge Justice Swatanter Kumar. The court issued a notice to the Centre, Justice Kumar and Secretary-General of the SC on the girl’s plea to set up a mechanism to probe complaints against retired judges. The court also questioned the prolonged delay by the intern to lodge a complaint.
The girl’s petition demanded an enquiry under the Vishaka Guidelines and sought setting up of a permanent mechanism in the SC to probe such complaints against judicial officers, including retired judges. After setting up a panel against Justice AK Ganguly on a similar complaint on December 5, 2013, the Full Bench of the SC had decided that it would not hear any more complaints against former judges.
At the outset, the SC wondered why despite being a law graduate, it took the girl two years to lodge a complaint to the CJI. The incident, as per the petition, occurred on May 28, 2011 and the complaint was made to the CJI on December 2, 2013. “Why did she wait for two yearsIJ” enquired the bench, also comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Shiva Kirti Singh. Sharing its reservation on the complaint, the bench observed: “Our apprehension is that after 20 years, somebody may come and allege something against a judge aged 85-90 years.”
Arguing for the girl, senior advocate Harish Salve pointed out there was no way she could have approached the court in the absence of any mechanism to enquire on her complaint. “Once there is a formal mechanism put in place, the court may decide on making complaints time-barred,” Salve said.
The court agreed to consider this aspect alone as it sought the assistance of A-G GE Vahanvati, along with the views of senior jurists Fali Nariman and PP Rao. Posting the matter after four weeks, the bench, considering the serious allegations in the petition, clarified: “It is made clear that at the moment we are not expressing any opinion on the averments/allegations made by the petitioner against respondent 2 (Justice Kumar).” But this paled into insignificance as Justice Kumar was issued a notice.
Meanwhile, Justice Kumar moved the Delhi HC and sought damages besides restraining of the media from publicising the sexual harassment case, his lawyer Maninder Singh said. While the HC reserved for Thursday the order on the plea seeking restraint on reporting in the case, the court directed the media to report only the court proceedings, “nothing less, nothing more.”