Chief Justice DY Chandrachud has asked for a report after an open letter – purportedly by a woman judge in Uttar Pradesh alleging sexual harassment by a district judge and requesting permission to kill herself – went viral on social media.
The woman judge from Banda in her letter to Chief Justice wrote, “kindly permit me to end my life in a dignified way. Let my life be – DISMISSED”.
“I have been sexually harassed to the very limit. I have been treated like utter garbage. I feel like an unwanted insect,” she further wrote in her letter that went viral on social media.
On the directions of CJI Chandrachud, the Supreme Court Secretary General Atul M Kurhekar asked for report by today morning from the registrar general of the Allahabad Hight Court on the status of all the complaints made by the woman judge.
Last night, the Secretary General of the apex court was informed that the acting Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court had also taken note of the open letter written by the woman judge.
In her letter, the woman judge had also mentioned that an investigation was ordered over her complaint filed with the Internal Complaints Committee of the Hight Court in July 2023, however the inquiry is “a farce and a sham”.
“The witnesses in the enquiry are immediate Subordinates of the District Judge. How the Committee expects the Witnesses to depose against their Boss is beyond my understanding,” said the woman judge.
She also said that he had demanded transfer of the judge to ensure fair investigation but the Supreme Court dismissed her petition in “just eight seconds”.
“All I requested was that the District Judge be transferred during the pendency of the inquiry. The bare minimum prayer was not heeded to,” she said in her letter.
“I have no will to live anymore. I have been rendered to a Walking Corpse in the last year and a half. There is no purpose in carrying this soulless and lifeless body around anymore. There is no purpose left in my life,” The two-page letter from the woman judge read.
