 "Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud")
Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud on Thursday sought a status report from the Allahabad High Court (HC) administration on the status of an inquiry into allegations of sexual harassment levelled by a woman civil judge in Uttar Pradesh's Banda district against a district judge of the state judiciary and his associates.
This comes on the heels of the woman judge's letter to the CJI going viral on social media. In the two-page letter, the woman judge requested the CJI's permission to take her life, citing the abuse and harassment she had endured in her career during her posting in Barabanki.
"I have no will to live anymore. I have been rendered to a walking corpse in the last year and a half. There is no purpose in carrying this soulless and lifeless body around anymore. There is no purpose left in my life. Kindly permit me to end my life in a dignified way," she wrote in the letter.
According to people familiar with the matter, Supreme Court's secretary general Atul M Kurhekar, on the instructions of the CJI, wrote to the registrar general of the Allahabad High Court on Thursday evening, asking for the status of the proceedings before the Internal Complaint Committee (ICC) that is dealing with the complaint of the judge.
"The Supreme Court administration, under the direction of the Hon'ble Chief Justice of India, has taken cognisance of the matter on the administrative side and has sought a report from the registrar general of the Allahabad High Court. After the report is received, appropriate follow-up measures will be taken," reported Hindustan Times (HT), citing sources.
Case dismissed after eight seconds of hearing
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The woman judge filed a petition before the Supreme Court on December 4, which came up for hearing on Wednesday before a bench led by Justice Hrishikesh Roy.
During the hearings on Wednesday, the bench stated that it does not need to issue any judicial order for the time being because an ICC was already seized of the woman judge's complaint.
The bench had observed that the ICC was constituted on the woman judge's complaint, and hence, she should wait.
"Since the ICC is already in session of the matter and a resolution is already passed which is pending approval of the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, we see no reason to entertain this writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution. The writ petition is, accordingly, dismissed," the order noted.
The woman judge, in the letter made public on Thursday, said that the Supreme Court dismissed her case after only eight seconds of hearing.
'Attempted suicide in the past'
In the letter, the woman judge said that the district judge in question had asked her to meet him at night. She further claimed that no action was taken despite filing a complaint with the chief justice of Allahabad High Court and the administrative judge in 2022. Later, she filed a complaint with the ICC of the High Court in July 2023.
"It took six months and a thousand emails just to start an inquiry. The proposed inquiry is also a farce and a sham. The witnesses in the inquiry are immediate subordinates of the district judge. How the committee expects the witnesses to depose against their boss is beyond my understanding," she said in the letter.
Her letter further said that she had asked that the district judge be transferred during the course of the inquiry in order to allow for a fair examination of facts, but her plea was turned down.
She also mentioned in the letter that she had attempted suicide in the past.
