The Madhya Pradesh High Court dismissed the claims of a former female judicial official who claimed she was forced to hand in her papers after filing sexual harrasment complaints against one of the court’s judges.
‘If the petitioner’s argument that transfer was due to a particular judge is to be accepted, it will have to inevitably accepted that the Chief Justice (of MP HC) and other judges were so amenable and pliable that one judge could convince them to transfer,’ Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told a Supreme Court bench.
Mehta pointed out that a judges’ inquiry committee, which included former SC judge Justice R Bhanumathi, former Bombay HC judge Justice Manjula Chellur, and senior advocate K K Venugopal, who is now the Attorney General, cleared the HC judge of sexual harrasment allegations in a report tabled in Rajya Sabha in December 2017.
‘If the committee’s findings are examined, two conclusions — sexual harassment claims and a hostile work environment — are found to be non-existent,’ Mehta said a bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and B R Gavai. He claimed that sitting judges had testified in the case and that evidence had been evaluated.
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