Sangeeta Madan, an additional judge from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh rocked the judiciary when she recently quit saying she could no more tolerate the continuing sexual harassment by a high court judge. India Legal has the letter she wrote to the Chief Justice of India
RM Lodha which we have put on our website: www.indialegalonline.com as the country needs to know. Ironically, Madan was heading the Vishaka Committee against sexual harassment. But she could not protect herself and found it best to resign from the judiciary as the only way of escape. The Supreme Court Bar Association passed a resolution demanding that the issue be thoroughly investigated. Its president Pravin H Parekh forwarded the resolution to the CJI asking for immediate action.
By India Legal Bureau
A woman’s plight
Sangeeta Madan, in her letter to the chief justice of India, describes the circumstances that forced her to resign to escape sexual harassment. Excerpts:
The constitution of India gives us equal rights and the democracy in this country is upheld by its institutions, with judiciary being the prime. The citizens have faith in our judicial system and therefore seek legal redressal when anything goes wrong. However, what happens when one of the members of the judiciary itself becomes a victim of legal excesses and is summarily disposed off without any hearing, reason, chance to represent or be granted a right to be heard. We hear a lot of debates and discussions on gender neutrality and that merit being the sole criteria for career advancement and the system being sensitive and responsive to the needs of women. While in theory these platitudes does make interesting and disarming debating points, the reality is much stark, ugly and is extremely challenging for a woman to break the glass ceiling in pursuit of her career…
I practised law for fifteen years at Delhi Courts and got selected at 2nd position in the competitive examination of Madhya Pradesh higher judicial services at district entry level in 2001 (direct recruitment from bar) with the great support and encouragement of my family and loving husband, Mr Sanjay Madan. I was posted at Gwalior. My husband, a successful professional in his own right, is one of the leading architects of Delhi and is working in a well-established corporate house. To be with us, he used to regularly commute from Delhi to Gwalior on every Friday and stayed till Monday and at times beyond. He sacrificed his own comforts so that I could pursue my career, which was also his dream. God had given me an ideal family and I was the happiest person on earth.
I took training under the guidance of Justice DK Paliwal, the then district judge. After analyzing my performance and dedication during my training period, the Honorable Justice DK Paliwal recommended me for the regular posting. I was posted as the VIIIth additional district and session judge at Gwalior in October 2012…
Then, in the month of April 2013, I was appointed as the chairperson of District Vishaka Committee and further analyzing my excellent performance, sincerity, honesty, integrity, the Honorable High Court of Madhya Pradesh on the report of the then district judge (vigilance & inspection) assigned me additional charge of special judge under MP Dacoity Vyaparan Prabhavit Kshetra Adhiniyam in the same year, in May 2013… I understand that possibly my annual confidential report of January 2014 was excellent and outstanding.
Thereafter, in the end of March 2014, new district judge Kamal Singh Thakur was transferred to Gwalior. By this time I had
completed approximately two years and eight months in the judiciary. During this period, the administrative judge, Justice S Gangele met me at various seminars and meetings and like my other subordinate colleagues I also showed equal courtesy. Suddenly he started showing more than normal interest in my work and gradually started passing colored remarks on me.
One of such incident is that on the occasion of marriage ceremony of a judicial officer on 22.2.2014, Justice Gangele passed a remark on me in the presence of my 16 year old daughter. “Sangeeta, you have an excellent work performance but you are more beautiful than your work. I do not even want to blink my eyes” as he stared at me from top to bottom and then put his hands on my back. My 16-year-old daughter was shocked by this strange gesture. I expressed by all possible means that this gesture was unwelcome and with tears in my eyes I immediately left the party as I felt that his conduct was most shocking and disgraceful.
I just wanted to avoid making a scene at that time and wanted to retrieve myself from the troublesome and awkward situation.
Thereafter, Justice Gangele sent many messages to me through district registrar, Naveen Sharma JMFC for meeting him at his bungalow. Given the previous incident, and since I learnt that Justice Gangele used to live all alone in his house, I made excuses to avoid meeting him at his bungalow.
Before this, on 8.12.2013 or 9.12.2013, the wife of CJM Gwalior, Rajendra Chaurasia called me on my landline telephone and told me that Justice Gangele is eager to see me perform dance on an item song at ladies sangeet on 10.12.2013 on his 25th marriage anniversary. I was bewildered at such a preposterous request but keeping in mind the hierarchy and situation at hand, I politely avoided the same on the pretext that I had already organized a children’s party on 10th December at my residence, on the occasion of birthday of my younger daughter.
I could smell and sense foul and malicious intentions of Justice Gangele. Call it a woman’s intuition but I was very cautious and disturbed. But with several changes in the working environment and enormous judicial work, I decided to keep my attention solely towards my work to help me get over this bad phase of life, and thus, I ignored him and kept doing my work.
Thereafter, on 11th December 2013 under obligations of official protocol I went to the 25th marriage anniversary party, but given his past conduct, I did not wish to go alone, so I decided to go along with my daughters. There Justice Gangele found an opportunity to come close and whispered to me that “he missed the opportunity of viewing a sexy and beautiful figure dancing on the floor and that he is desperate to see the same.” …I felt ashamed of such minds reaching positions of authority. But to avoid any controversy, I immediately left the party with my daughters.
In April, 2014, the farewell party of Honourable Justice Saxena was organized by district judiciary, Gwalior, and all the honorable justices were invited. At dinner Justice Gangele was continuously staring at me; however much I avoided, I always found myself under his constant gaze, and thus, before he could make any advances, I left the party with my children.
On not paying any heed to the… advances and for not fulfilling the illegal and malicious aspirations of Justice Gangele, it appears that he got agitated. Thereafter, as soon as new district judge Kamal Singh Thakur and new district judge (inspection) Rajeev Sharma joined Gwalior in the month of April 2014 after their transfers, Justice Gangele started harassing me through both of above… district judges including district registrar Naveen Sharma, JMFC.
Not only this, on the instructions of Justice Gangele, the inspecting district judge (inspection) Rajeev Sharma and district judge Kamal Singh Thakur started visiting my court with an unusual frequency regularly—hourly, and at times within a span of minutes, after starting of court, even before 2 minutes of lunch time, 1 minute after lunch time, 5 minutes before rising of the court but at all instances no fault could be found, rather I was on the chair doing judicial work…
Thus it became apparent that the reason for all this unnecessary harassment being inflicted by my own senior on me, was to somehow break my resolve, and make me succumb…
Parekh urges firm action
A letter from Pravin Parekh, president, Supreme Court Bar Association, to Chief Justice of India RM Lodha, contained the
resolution that the executive committee of the Bar Association passed in its meeting on August 5:
I) The Executive Committee has perused the letter dated 5th August, 2014 addressed by former ADJ, Gwalior, and the resolution-cum-proposal of the Ladies Bar Room/Welfare & Grievance of Women Lawyers Sub-Committee meeting dated 5.8.2014. The Executive Committee of the SCBA is prima facie of the view that this amounts to sexual harassment and needs to be thoroughly and efficaciously probed. The Committee is very much disturbed and anguished by the statements contained in her representation. The Executive Committee resolves to recommend to the Hon’ble Chief justice of India requesting him to take immediate action both departmental as well as directing filing of FIR. A proper and effective action ought to be taken.
II) The SCBA will render all assistance which she requires to pursue her representation or follow up action before the Court or before any other authority.
For complete letter, click on this following link : http://indialegalonline.com/item-number-high-court-judge-female-district-judge-can-law-makers-law-breakers/