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The recent complaint of sexual harassment by a dismissed woman employee against the chief justice of India and possibly even more the manner of dealing with the allegation has hit the institution like a ton of bricks and focused attention on judges. The judiciary has been characterized by a sort of “above mere mortals” approach toward itself. In the absence of any law at the time, the Visakha judgment by the Supreme Court in 19971 laid down the law and procedure to be followed in cases of sexual harassment at workplace. The law declared by the Supreme Court is binding on all institutions including courts.
That the courts have women employees is an indisputable fact. However, the apex court, rather than setting an example, itself never set up Internal Complaints Committees, and the undeclared perspective seems to have been that sexual harassment of women does not occur in courts. In terms of the setting, the court as workplace is not so different from other offices, except for being headed by judges. Again, without spelling it out, the assumption seems to have been that the august and moral persona of the judge and/or the hallowed function of being “temples of justice” would cleanse all “bad” and “polluting” from the human psyche.
Parliament enacted the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act in 2013. The Apex Court appears to have functioned without any Complaints Committee as mandated in 1997 by the Visakha judgment for about 16 years. Binu Tamta, a lawyer, filed a writ petition in 2013 in the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court and others, which raised the question of formation of Internal Complaints Committees in courts too as per the Visakha judgement guidelines. The Supreme Court accepted and approved the regulations formulated and also directed that the regulations be sent to all the high courts so that “they too may formulate their own regulations in the same manner.” Pursuant to the Binu T