Lucknow: Terming the Prevention Of Women From Sexual Harassment (POSH) Act, 2013, “a big lie” and advising working women in India to “learn to live with sexual harassment”, a woman civil judge in Uttar Pradesh (UP) has written an open letter to Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud seeking permission to end her life, after inquiry into her complaints of alleged sexual harassment by a district judge and his associates “saw little headway in over a year”.
The letter which went viral on social media Thursday, was purportedly written after her petition in Supreme Court seeking action against the accused was “dismissed within eight seconds” Wednesday. The woman has further claimed in her letter that she then attempted to die by suicide, but that her first attempt remained unsuccessful.
Addressing the CJI as the “elder most guardian”, she therefore sought his permission to end her life, as she wrote “there is no purpose left in my life”.
“I have been sexually harassed by one particular district judge and his associates. I was told to meet the district judge at night. I complained to the Honourable Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court and the administrative judge (High Court judge) in 2022. No action has been taken till date. No one even bothered to ask me ‘What happened, why are you distressed’,” the woman judge has alleged in the letter.
In a statement to ThePrint the secretary general of the Supreme Court said, “Under directions of CJI D.Y. Chandrachud a communication has been sent to the Allahabad High Court seeking the present status of all the complaints by judicial officer, who sought permission to end her life, by today [Thursday] 11 am. The Secretary General of Supreme Court was informed on phone last night that the acting Chief Justice of the High Court has also taken cognisance of the open letter.”
Claiming that it took her “six months and a thousand emails just to start an inquiry” by the internal complaints committee (ICC) — mandated to receive and redress complaints of sexual harassment at the workplace under POSH guidelines — the woman judge wrote, “I complained to the Internal Complaints Committee (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,” she wrote.
According to the woman judge there has been no headway in the inquiry into her complaints.
Adding that her request for the transfer of the accused judge during the pendency of the inquiry to ensure a fair probe was disregarded, she alleged: “The witnesses in the inquiry are immediate subordinates of the district judge. How does the committee expect the witnesses to depose against their boss? This is beyond my understanding. It’s basic that for a fair enquiry the witness ought not to be in the administrative control of the respondent (accused).”
Talking to ThePrint Thursday, the woman judge alleged the accused had been “intentionally targeting her, harassing her as she refused their demands” like meeting in the night.
She has levelled allegations of sexual harassment against the concerned judge and two office-bearers of the district bar association.
“According to the POSH act, the enquiry in the case should have been concluded within three months and it took my soul to initiate that inquiry in six months,” she said.
Even after the inquiry was initiated in July 2023, the accused remained in the same position, she said, alleging that “the inquiry would not be fair if those people remain at the same place”.
“There will be no purpose for that so-called inquiry. The accused are in a superior position and powerful. All my witnesses are subordinates,” she told ThePrint.
She further claimed that the accused was still serving in the same position in UP’s Barabanki district.
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‘If you complain, you will be tortured’
In her two-page open letter to the CJI, the woman judge has written that all she wished for was a “fair inquiry” and that the petition she filed in the Supreme Court this month seeking action against the accused was dismissed “within eight seconds” Wednesday.
“I have been treated like utter garbage. I feel like an unwanted insect and I hoped to provide justice to others. What naïve me! I wish to tell all the working women in India: Learn to live with sexual harassment. It’s a truth of our lives,” she wrote.
She added: “If you complain, you will be tortured. Be submissive. And when I mean, no one listens, that includes the Supreme Court. You will get eight seconds of hearing, an insult and a threat to impose costs [for judicial proceedings]. You will be pushed to commit suicide and if you are lucky (unlike me) your first attempt at suicide will be successful.”
The letter further alleges, “If any of the women think that you will fight against the system, let me tell you, I couldn’t and I am a judge. I could not even muster a fair enquiry for myself. Let alone justice. I advise all women to learn to be a toy, or a non-living thing.”
Claiming that she had been “rendered as a walking corpse over the past one-and-a-half years”, she further wrote in the letter that “there is no purpose in carrying this soulless and lifeless body around anymore and there is no purpose left in her life”.
“I thought that the highest court will definitely hear such a straight-forward, benign prayer. What did I know? My writ petition was dismissed in eight seconds without any hearing and consideration of my prayers. Just one sentence, and dismissed. I felt like my life, my dignity and my soul have been dismissed, It felt like a personal humiliation,” she wrote.
She added: “Kindly permit me to end my life in a dignified way. Let my life be dismissed.”
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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