A woman lawyer has accused a clerk of a Supreme Court lawyer of sexual harassment. The woman took to Twitter to express her dismay at the way in which her complaint was dealt with.

She alleged that one Deepak, who is a clerk working for Advocate Mansoor Ali, harassed her. She went on to report the same to Ali, who had asked his clerk to apologize to the woman. Ali confirmed the same to Bar & Bench.

Speaking to Bar & Bench, the woman said that she confronted Ali and Deepak in the Supreme Court Library, where there were dozens of other lawyers present, but not a single woman. Some of them allegedly told Deepak to apologise irrespective of whether he was guilty or not. This, she felt, trivialised the matter.

Ali also confirmed that some lawyers spoke in the manner described by the woman.

The woman went on to state that Ali told her that if she had a grievance, there was a due procedure that must be followed. This statement was allegedly made after she told him that she thought the Supreme Court was the last place where such an incident would occur.

She said that she also asked Ali to ensure that Deepak would not attend Court in the future. She has written to the Supreme Court Bar Association via email in this regard.

When asked whether Deepak’s card should be withdrawn, Ali said that would be too harsh a punishment.

“The poor chap will lose his job,” he added.

The woman also added that she would have approached the Supreme Court’s Gender Sensitisation Internal Complaints Committee (GSIIC), but could not find an email address to which an anonymous complaint could be addressed.

“In case I see the clerk again, I will take all possible action to make sure he is not allowed on the premises, as it is an issue concerning safety”, she added.

The alleged incident happened in Court number three, yesterday. The woman is still undecided on whether or not to lodge a police complaint.