Senior Advocate Indira Jaising has described sexual harassment as the “dirty secret of the judiciary of India”, saying she has represented several women judges who approached her with complaints of harassment by male judges.
Speaking at the 29th DS Borker Memorial Lecture on ‘My Vision of India: 2047 A.D.’, Indira linked the alleged incidents to the embedded hierarchy within the judicial system.
She said, "In the course of my experience, I have had to deal with women judges. I have represented a lot of women judges. These women judges have come to me with complaints about sexual harassment by male judges, which is why I did write in my book that sexual harassment is the dirty secret of the judiciary of India. No one wants to talk about it.”
Jaising recalled the experience of a woman judge whom she had represented and alleged that women district court judges were subjected to humiliating practices by members of the higher judiciary.
Indira recalled a woman judge who told her that when a high court judge retires, women district court judges are asked to line up, wear sarees of the same colour and throw flowers at male judges as they enter the dining room. Indira described this as a practice of the higher judiciary.
She further alleged that the same woman judge had faced sexual harassment from a male judge who asked her to attend his 25th wedding anniversary celebration and dance to an “item number”. Indira said the woman resisted the demand and subsequently lost her job.
She said the woman judge had alleged that the male judge made sexually coloured remarks at the anniversary function and subsequently sent messages and sought to meet her. The allegations against the judge were denied.
The woman judge’s case involved a former additional district and sessions court judge of the Madhya Pradesh Higher Judicial Service whose identity was kept confidential in subsequent proceedings.
She had been directly recruited to the service in 2011 after practising as a lawyer for 15 years. She was posted as an additional district and sessions court judge at Gwalior in August 2011. In 2013, she was appointed president of the District Vishaka Committee and was assigned cases involving serious offences, including rape, gang rape and murder with rape.
The allegations concerning the 25th wedding anniversary arose in December 2013. The woman judge alleged that she was asked to dance to an “item-song” at a ladies’ sangeet connected with the celebrations. She declined but attended the main anniversary function with her two daughters.
She subsequently alleged that a high court judge made remarks about her appearance and about wanting to see her dance. She also alleged further sexually coloured interactions and other incidents in 2014 that contributed to her feeling harassed and victimised.
The judge was transferred from Gwalior to Sidhi in July 2014. Her request for an eight-month extension at Gwalior, citing her daughter’s Class 12 studies, was rejected. Her requests for alternative postings were also rejected, following which she resigned from judicial service on July 15, 2014.
The Madhya Pradesh government accepted her resignation two days later. She subsequently approached the President of India and the Chief Justice of India (CJI), seeking an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding her resignation and raising allegations against the high court judge.
An in-house inquiry followed, while 58 MPs also submitted a notice of motion in the Rajya Sabha seeking the judge’s removal. A Judges Inquiry Committee was constituted under the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968.
The committee’s report, submitted in December 2017, did not find the sexual-harassment allegations proved. The proceedings against the judge therefore did not establish the allegations made by the woman judge, and the Rajya Sabha subsequently cleared him of the charges.
However, the inquiry examined the circumstances surrounding the woman judge’s transfer and found it to be irregular. It concluded that the circumstances had become unbearable for her to continue in judicial service and recommended her reinstatement if she wished to return.
The matter later reached the Supreme Court in proceedings concerning her transfer and resignation. In 2022, a bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and BR Gavai held that her resignation could not be treated as voluntary.
The Supreme Court set aside the order accepting her resignation and directed her reinstatement as an additional district and sessions judge, with continuity of service and consequential benefits. The court did not award back wages. The judgement did not establish the sexual harassment allegations against the high court judge.
Returning to the broader issue, Indira said hierarchical practices in the judiciary have “devastating consequences, most particularly for women judges”. Jaising described such practices as “misogynistic” and "feudalistic" and expressed hope that they would end by 2047.
Former High Court Chief Justice and Senior Advocate S Muralidhar, who also spoke at the event, had similarly raised concerns about hierarchical and feudalistic practices in the judiciary and instances of women judges facing sexual innuendos and harassment from senior male colleagues.
Indira also spoke about wider constitutional concerns. She said the Constitution gives her hope that things can improve and argued that so long as citizens prevent the ruling party from changing the Constitution, governmental actions that are unconstitutional can be challenged.
She criticised what she described as attempts to alter the constitutional framework, including linking delimitation with women’s reservation, undertaking delimitation without legal assurance concerning the federal structure, and the proposal for “one nation, one election”.
Jaising said, “The idea of having one nation, one election – these are destructive ideas of the Constitution of India.”