On Friday, the Supreme
Court issued notice to Madhya Pradesh High Court and also stayed the
disciplinary proceedings against the district judge against whom sexual
harassment charges have been levelled by a woman judicial officer.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice SA
Bobde stayed the proceedings pending before the district judge.
The Bench during the hearing observed that filing complaints against judges had
become a trend and that it was a deplorable practice.
"This is such a regular
phenomenon in our system now. When something is on the verge of happening, all
kinds of things start. People remember what a bad person he is. What to do?
This has become a trend now. It has become a practice now," CJI
said.
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The Judge has approached the top
court seeking quashing of sexual harassment charges levelled against him by a
woman judicial judge.
In March 2018, the woman judge had lodged the complaint of sexual harassment at the workplace against the district judge. Disciplinary proceedings were initiated against him and in the meantime, the petitioner judge was transferred from Khandwa to Damoh.
The gender sensitisation and
internal complaints Committee submitted its report favouring further
disciplinary actions against him.
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"The petitioner (judge) has an
unblemished judicial service career spanning over 32 years with sterling record
of service and he is due to superannuate at the end of the year, 2020. The
entire action of Respondents (woman judge) is visited with arbitrariness,
malafide and in complete violation of law and the principles of natural justice
by holding enquiry and or recording statements behind the back of the
petitioner repeatedly without giving any opportunity to cross-examine even once
the complainant at any stage," the plea stated.
It added, "All these actions have been done at a time when the petitioner is in the zone of consideration for being considered for elevation. The action has apparently been kept pending for last more than two years by ordering one enquiry after the other by different agencies with a view to keep the 'pot boiling' in order to harm the career prospects of the petitioner and eschew him from consideration for extraneous reasons. Otherwise, there is no explicable reason as to why as many as four enquiries were conducted by different agencies at different points of time finally culminating into a fifth enquiry viz., disciplinary enquiry."
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