New Delhi: The Madhya Pradesh woman judge, who last month wrote to the Supreme Court collegium, opposing its recommendation to elevate a district judge to the state high court, tendered her resignation Tuesday.
Aditi Gajendra Sharma, who works as civil judge in Shahdol district, had accused her senior Rajesh Kumar Gupta of mentally harassing her by discriminating against her on the basis of caste. She had failed to get a hearing on her representations against him.
Her resignation letter (full letter below), submitted to the principal district judge of Shahdol, comes a day after the Centre Monday notified district judge Rajesh Kumar Gupta’s appointment as a judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court for two years.
Sharma’s letter underlines a sense of disappointment with the institution that has “failed to protect her”. The judge has reiterated her allegations against Gupta in the letter, while accusing him of orchestrating her suffering.
The letter has in very strong words criticised his recommendation and subsequent elevation as a HC judge. Disillusioned about not getting justice, the woman judge has pointed out that the same judiciary that “sermonises” about transparency has failed to follow the basic tenets of natural justice “within its own halls”.
The letter further points out that her complaints were not anonymous, but were documented with facts. Yet, there was no inquiry on them. And, even if there was one, she was never called for giving her version, it adds.
It also highlights that the woman judge was not seeking revenge, but was asking for scrutiny and goes on to deplore the fact that “judiciary failed her”.
When ThePrint contacted Sharma, she declined to comment but confirmed she had resigned, but refused to share the details of her letter.
When ThePrint had contacted Gupta earlier, he declined to comment, saying that he was under the HC’s supervision and was not allowed to speak on the matter.
As reported by ThePrint, Sharma had written to the top five judges of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice of India (CJI) B.R.Gavai, expressing her concern about the collegium’s move to recommend Gupta for his promotion to the HC. She also wrote separately to the Centre, apart from sending a representation to the President.
Gupta’s name, ThePrint reported, was rejected in 2023 by the SC collegium headed by then CJI D.Y. Chandrachud. His file was returned to the HC in the wake of some complaints, including that of Sharma’s.
The HC chief justice was asked to conduct an inquiry into Sharma’s complaint as well. Gupta was given a clean chit and his name re-sent to the Supreme Court collegium in April for fresh consideration. ThePrint has also learnt that Sharma was never called to record her statement when this inquiry took place.
Meanwhile, another complaint against Gupta related to alleged leak of secret documents was inquired into by a sitting SC judge, who found no evidence to substantiate the claim against the district judge.
Gupta had refused to share his response, saying he was under the HC’s supervision and not allowed to speak on the matter.
Sharma was terminated from service in 2023 for not faring well in the marking system meant to evaluate a trial court judge’s performance. She had challenged her removal in the Supreme Court where she won in February.
Senior advocate and Sharma’s lawyer Indira Jaising asserted that this was not the first that she was handling such a case involving the resignation of a woman judge.
“As she said, ‘the judicary’s daughters’ have been let down by the judiciary itself. I agree. There is something very wrong with the process of appointing judges of the high court behind closed doors. Surprisingly, the juduciary and the government are on the same page,” Jaising told ThePrint. “It’s hypocritical to talk of wanting more women judges in the system, when you cannot keep then there.”
The only solution, the senior advocate said, is to entertain complaints before appointment from affected or people concerned about the integrity and credibility of a proposed candidate. “We lost a very good judicial officer with an unblemished record of service. She won in the judicial side but lost on the administrative side.”
Also Read: 8 of 25 high courts have only 1 woman judge. Data shows poor representation in higher judiciary
‘Undermined dignity’
In her letter to the SC judges, Sharma specifically mentioned about her petition that she filed in the top court against her dismissal. She pointed out that her petition contained allegations of harassment against Gupta as well.
The petition recalled several instances when Sharma was publicly humiliated by Gupta and on some occasions by him as well as his wife. This, she submitted, had “undermined her dignity as a woman and judicial officer”.
In February, when the apex court ordered Sharma’s reinstatement, it did not make any observations on the allegations against Gupta.
After her reinstatement, Sharma received an advisory from the HC administrative branch to mend her “behaviour” as a judicial officer.
Sharma, who had made a complaint before her termination, wrote once again to the HC in which she requested that her representation against Gupta be considered as a formal complaint.
Her petition in the Supreme Court accused Gupta of abusing his authority. She claimed that she had become the subject of his attention due to various personal and professional disparities.
According to the petition, Sharma, as a trainee judge, faced various difficulties and unwelcome behaviour from Gupta and his wife. They allegedly made derogatory statements about her personal and professional life, and did not appreciate her friendship with their daughter who was her batchmate.
She was told by Gupta’s wife that she should “refrain” from displaying personal relationships with the children of higher-ranking individuals, the petition says.
‘Justice lost its way’—Justice Sharma’s full letter
To
The Hon’ble Chief Justice, High Court of Madhya Pradesh
Through Hon’ble The Registrar General and Hon’ble The Principal District Judge, Shahdol
Subject: Resignation from judicial service.
With every ounce of my moral strength and emotional exhaustion, I hereby resign from judicial service not because I lost faith in justice, but because justice lost its way inside the very institution sworn to protect it.
There comes a moment in every judge’s life when she is called to make a choice—not between right and wrong, but between silence and truth. Today, I choose truth, even if it comes at the cost of the very robe I once wore with reverence.
When I first sat for the Judicial Services Examination, I did so with a fire in my heart, a fire kindled by the immense respect and pride I held for the High Court of Madhya Pradesh. To me, this Hon’ble High Court wasn’t just a constitutional body—it was a sanctuary of truth. I told myself, “If you work honestly, if you uphold the law, this Court will stand by you when it matters most.
I believed that with my whole being. And I served accordingly with devotion, with discipline, and with the unshakable faith that this institution protects its own when they walk the path of integrity.
But today, I write this with a shattered spirit and the ache of betrayal. Not at the hands of a criminal or an accused, but at the hands of the very system I swore to serve.
I am resigning from judicial service, not because I failed the institution but because the institution has failed me. For years, I was subjected to unrelenting harassment—not merely of the body or the mind, but of my dignity, my voice, and my very existence as a woman judge who dared to speak up against a senior judge Shri Rajesh Kümar Gupta wielding unaccountable power. I followed every legitimate route—wrote to the Hon’ble Registrar General, the Hon’ble Chief justice of this Hon’ble High Court, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, the Hon’ble President of the Republic—hoping that if not justice, at least hearing might be granted.
But silence was their verdict. In that silence, I saw the brutal truth of our times that integrity is optional, power is protection, and those who speak the truth are punished more severely than those who violate it.
The same judiciary that sermonizes about transparency from the bench failed to even follow the basic tenets of natural justice within its own halls. The same institution that teaches equality before law handpicked power over truth. Shri Rajesh Kumar Gupta who orchestrated my suffering was not questioned – was rewarded. Recommended. Elevated. Given a pedestal instead of a summons. Shri Rajesh Kumar Gupta the man I accused not lightly, not anonymously, but with documented facts and the raw courage only a wounded woman can Summon was not even asked to explain. No inquiry. No notice. No hearing. No accountability—is now titled Justice, a cruel joke upon the very word.
I ask you—what message does this send to the judiciary’s daughters? That they may be assaulted, humiliated, and institutionally erased—and their only real crime was daring to believe that the system would protect them?
The ink of our Constitution may not have dried—but the conscience of those meant to uphold it has.
I was not asking for privilege. I was asking for process.
I was not demanding punishment. I was pleading for scrutiny.
I was not seeking revenge. I was crying for justice—not just for myself, but for the institution I cherished and believed in even when it did not believe in me.
I leave now, with wounds that no reinstatement, no compensation, no apology will ever heal—but also with my truth intact. Let this letter haunt the files it enters. Let it whisper in the hallways where silence once reigned. Let it live longer than the reputations hastily protected, and the wrongs quietly buried.
I sign off not as an officer of the court, but as a victim of its silence.
Where were the rules then? Where was the revered transparency then?
You refused to protect one of your own.
You refused to uphold the principles you preach.
You refused to be just where it mattered the most.
And if this does not shake your conscience, then perhaps the rot runs deeper than we dare admit.
I leave this institution with no medals, no celebration, and no bitterness—only the bitter truth that the judiciary failed me. But worse—it failed itself.
This letter of resignation is not closure. It is a statement of protest. Let it remain in your archives as a reminder that there once was a woman judge in Madhya Pradesh who gave her all to justice, and was broken by the system that preached it the loudest.
And if even one judge, one registrar, one member of the Collegium reads this and feels unease then perhaps, my voice has done more justice than my robe ever could.
Yours faithfully
Aditi Kumar Sharma
iv civil judge junior division
Madhya Pradesh Judicial Services
Date: 28.07.2025
Place: Shahdol, M.P
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Also Read: Stalkers, creepy 1 am emails, flowers – What two women judges in small towns battled