Woman judicial officer quits over 'harasser's' promotion

NEW DELHI: In a dramatic development, a junior woman judicial officer has resigned, protesting the appointment of a district judge as an HC judge despite her serious allegations of misconduct against him. In her resignation letter, she lamented that the constitutional courts rewarded a judge who had severely harassed and tormented her.

The judicial officer, reinstated by the SC's stinging judgment of Feb 28 that termed her termination "arbitrary and illegal", said the district judge, who had orchestrated her sufferings, was rewarded with a high court judgeship .

'Was subjected to harassment for speaking against judge'

The man I accused, 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. He is now titled as justice, a cruel joke upon the very word, said the judicial officer, who sent her resignation on Monday.

Alleging that she was subjected to unrelenting harassment for speaking against the judge, she asked what message the appointment sent to judiciary's daughters - "That they may be assaulted, humiliated, and institutionally erased for their only real crime was to dare to believe that the system would protect them."

"The same judiciary that sermonises about transparency from the bench failed to even follow basic tenets of natural justice within its own halls. The same institution that teaches equality before law, handpicked power over truth. He, who orchestrated my suffering was not even questioned but rewarded," she further said. In her resignation letter, she wrote, "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."