SC sets up gender panel

The Supreme Court on Tuesday set up its Gender Sensitisation and Internal Complaints Committee days after a young law intern accused a former judge of sexual harassment.

Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai will head the committee which will have nine other members, including another judge Justice Madan B Lokur and four lawyers.

Other members include a representative from an NGO “Haq: Centre for Child Rights” and the director of Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies. Of the 10 members, seven are women .

The formation of the committee was delayed for over a month as the Supreme Court (SC) Bar Association and SC Clerks Association failed to submit their nominations.
At the time of taking suo motu cognizance of the sexual harassment charges by the young law intern, Chief Justice P Sathasivam had reminded both associations of their failure to send in nominations.

The committee in its present form could be attributed to a PIL by a group of women advocates contending that there was no panel in the apex court to deal with sexual harassment complaints as per the Vishakha judgment guidelines.

Subsequently, the Gender Sensitisation and Sexual Harassment of Women at the Supreme Court of India (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Regulations, 2013, were notified and the chief justice constituted the committee.

In a related development, the three-judge panel probing the allegations by the law intern, held another meeting on Tuesday.