Monumental Patriarchal Injustice

Sexual harassment of women by men at the work place is rampant in India and it takes place in both the formal and the informal sector. Consequently, that a junior woman worker of the Supreme Court should complain that someone as senior as the Chief Justice of India had sexually harassed her is not surprising. After all, no men and no institutions are above suspicion in this matter given the extent of patriarchy that pervades Indian society. However, there are a few disturbing points in the present case that need to be critically reviewed to understand the depth of this abhorrent phenomenon.

Normally, if a woman spurns the sexual advances of a man at the work place, the matter ends there unless the woman makes a complaint or the man continues to harass her. In this case the latter happened. The man did not make any further sexual advances but took vindictive action against the woman leading to the termination of her service on flimsy grounds. Matters did not end there as the man then pressurised the police to target her husband and brother in law, both junior level policemen and had them suspended. Then the police dug up an old complaint against the woman and her family and had her arrested. The woman was forced to fall at the feet of the man’s wife and rub her nose on the ground saying that she would not commit any transgression again. Even after that the police persecution continued.

The man had first shown undue favour to the woman and then demanded that the woman gratify him sexually. When the woman had the guts to spurn such a powerful man, he became incensed and decided to crush her completely for having dared to spurn him. The woman then showed even greater courage and complained to all the justices of the Supreme Court and went to the press with her complaint.

The Chief Justice of India then first alleged that there was a conspiracy to curb the independence of the judiciary by framing him falsely and then constituted a committee of the judges of the Supreme Court who are all subordinate to him, without any independent member to probe the complaint of the woman against him. This committee did not allow the woman to take the help of her lawyer while deposing before the committee and nor was she told of the procedure to be followed by the committee to decide on the complaint. She was also not given a copy of the record of the proceedings of the committee. During the proceedings the judge heading the committee offered to reinstate her in her job. The woman withdrew from the probe saying that this was a gross violation of justice. Thereafter, the committee decided ex parte that the complaint of the woman had no substance and cleared the Chief Justice of any wrong doing.

The serious problem in this case is that the Chief Justice of India had first used his immense power to harass the woman after she spurned his sexual advances and then bypassed the expected procedure of having an independent probe into the complaint and allowing the complainant all possible legal assistance. Justice in this country has often not been seen to be delivered to poor people and especially Dalits and this has happened again in this case as the complainant is a Dalit woman. Even in the USA there have been two cases in which judges who were appointed to the Supreme Court were accused of sexually harassing women earlier but there too eventually the women did not get justice.

Since the Supreme Court itself has rubbished the woman’s complaints there is very little legal redress left and so this is nothing short of monumental patriarchal injustice. Consequently, street protests have started against this blatant use of patriarchal power to crush a courageous woman who has stood up against it with about 60 lawyers and activists being arrested from in front of the Supreme Court where they had assembled to register a public protest against the Chief Justice of India. It remains to be seen if these incipient protests snowball into a mass protest that can force the Supreme Court to follow proper procedure to probe the complaint of the woman.