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Supreme Court stays sexual harassment inquiry against District judge

Last Updated 04 September 2020, 15:02 IST

The Supreme Court on Friday stayed disciplinary enquiry against a district judge on a sexual harassment charge by a woman judicial officer, while deploring a regular phenomenon of levelling allegations against a person before elevation or promotion.

A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian issued notice to the Madhya Pradesh High Court's registrar general on a petition filed by Shambhoo Singh Raghuvanshi.

The petitioner challenged the validity of the high court's order of August 14, rejecting his plea against the enquiry.

Senior advocate R Balasubramanian, appearing for Raghuvanshi, contended that the petitioner had unblemished 32 years record of service. He was to be considered for elevation to the HC but unfortunately, a 2018 complaint surfaced, leading to the enquiry.

He was to retire at the end of this year but had to face this embarrassment.

The court said this has become a regular practice in the system that before elevation, charges are made, bringing bad name to the person.

In his plea, the petitioner contended the Gender Sensitisation Internal Complaint Committee (GSICC) has given a final report in the matter on April 30, 2019, but subsequently made a volte-face, favouring a disciplinary enquiry against him.

"All these actions have been done at a time when the petitioner is in the zone of consideration 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," he said.

"Despite such categorical finding of 'no evidence' and 'no material to proceed in the matter', the GSICC in a volta face action recommended disciplinary action against the petitioner as well as the complainant dehors the mandate of law contained in Sec 10, 11 and 13 of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013," the plea said.

"It is submitted that the petitioner 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 (HC and its committee) 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 District judge said in the plea.

All these actions have been done at a time when the petitioner is in the zone of consideration for being considered for elevation, the plea said.

Earlier, the apex court had refused to entertain the previous plea of the district judge seeking quashing of show cause notice of the GSICC.

It had granted liberty to the district judge to withdraw the petition and avail such other remedies as may be available in law.

The judicial officer then moved the Jabalpur bench of the High Court which dismissed the plea.

The district judge challenged the issuance of show cause notice by the Principal Registrar of Madhya Pradesh High Court for the inquiry.

(With inputs from PTI)

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(Published 04 September 2020, 10:23 IST)

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