What happens when the topmost authority of the judiciary is accused of sexual harassment?
On 20 April, a former junior court assistant accused the Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi of sexually harassing her. Without getting into details of the accusation itself or looking at the merits and demerits of the accusation, in this podcast we’ll look at where the guardian of law falls in the legal framework to address sexual harassment at work. Tune in!
Technically, after the accusations, according to the SC's "in-house" procedure, what should have happened is, an Inquiry Committee should have take cognisance of the matter and sent a notice to the CJI. But what happened instead was that CJI Gogoi held a special hearing with two other judges over a matter which concerned his own self, which was listed as a “matter of great public importance touching upon the independence of the judiciary” – where he denied the allegations, of course, and also maligned the complainant, and indicated that it was part of a conspiracy by some "bigger force" to "deactivate" the CJI's office.
Several lawyers said that this was a severe misuse of his position as the Chief Justice of India – somebody who cannot be touched by anybody except the parliament. But of course, the other top office bearers also backed him in the hearing – Attorney General and Solicitor General, president and members of the Supreme Court Bar Association, and then union minister Arun Jaitley wrote a whole blog post blaming the digital media for participating in this process of destabilising the court.
All of this begs the question – who does a complainant approach when up against the highest authority? Sexual harassment at workplaces is a regular affair, and the Supreme Court helped frame the Vishakha guidelines to addresses sexual harassment at workplaces – it is a tiny bit ironic that the Supreme Court is at the other end of this ordeal – but in a regular workplace, as per the Sexual Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act (which is built on the Vishakha guidelines), the complainant can approach the Internal Complaints Committee. But does the same work for the CJI?
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