New Delhi: A girl, who graduated from Kolkata-based National University of Juridical Sciences this year and was doing an internship with the Supreme Court judge, has alleged that the judge has sexually harassed her last year in December.
The lawyer has accused the SC judge in her in blog on November 6 for ‘Journal of Indian Law and Society’ and repeated it later in an interview on the website ‘Legally India’.
In the interview on ‘Legally India’ she said, “The Supreme court judge who is old enough to be her grandfather harassed me in a hotel room at a time when Delhi and the entire nation was on the boil over the December 16 gang-rape case.”
The apex court judge who is now retired, is influential and enjoyed a high ranking as a Judge, due to which the victim initially kept quite although she terms herself to be a coward for not speaking up.
She also said, “I have heard of three other cases sexual harassment by the same judge and I know of at least four other girls who’ve faced harassment from other judges – not perhaps as bad as mine.”
“Most of them were in the chambers of the judge and other people around, so it never gets too bad. A girl I know faced continuous sexual harassment throughout and sexual advances, and actually faced troubles through her work because of it”, she was quoted as telling to ‘Legally India’.
But she felt it was her responsibility to ensure that other young girls are not put under the same trial, thus decided to speak up.
Currently a fellow with ‘Natural Justice: Lawyers for Communities, she has refused to say anything on the issue as she had already narrated the matter to Legally India and in her personal blog.
As per her Blog she says, “Last December was momentous for the feminist movement in the country – almost an entire population seemed to rise up spontaneously against the violence on women, and the injustices of a seemingly apathetic government. In the strange irony of situations that our world is replete with, the protests were the backdrop of my own experience.”
“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. 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. 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.”
