Chief Justice DY Chandrachud has sought a status report from the Allahabad High Court administration after an open letter – purportedly written by a woman judge in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda alleging sexual harassment by a senior – went viral on social media.
In the letter addressed to the Chief Justice, the woman judge sought permission to die by suicide following the alleged harassment by a district judge and his associates during her previous posting in Barabanki.
The woman alleged that the district judge had asked her to meet him at night. “I have been sexually harassed to the very limit. I have been treated like utter garbage. I feel like an unwanted insect,” she said in the letter which has gone viral on social media.
She said a probe was ordered into her allegations after she filed a complaint with the Internal Complaints Committee of the High Court in July 2023 – which she called 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,” she wrote.
She said that she had requested the transfer of the judge during the pendency of the inquiry to ensure a fair investigation, but her petition was dismissed by the Supreme Court in “just eight seconds.”
“All I requested was that the District Judge be Transferred during the pendency of the Enquiry. The bare minimum prayer was not heeded to,” the letter said.
“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 said.
“Kindly permit me to end my life in a dignified way. Let my life be:Â DISMISSED,” she said.Â
After the letter went viral, Supreme Court’s Secretary General Atul M Kurhekar, on the instructions of the Chief Justice, wrote to the registrar general of the Allahabad High Court, asking for the status of the proceedings.
In response, he was told that the acting Chief Justice of the High Court has also taken cognizance of the open letter, officials said.
