Another law intern alleges sexual harassment by former SC Judge Swatanter Kumar

After Justice AK Ganguly, Justice Swatanter Kumar, former Supreme Court judge and current Chairperson of National Green Tribunal is now in trouble for sexually harassing a law intern..In December last year, the Supreme Court received an affidavit from a law graduate who claimed she had been sexually harassed while interning with Justice Kumar..Daily Mail had initially reported the same on December 18 without disclosing the name of the judge. Subsequently, IBNLive and Indian Express published stories naming Justice Kumar as the accused..As per the affidavit, a copy of which is with Bar & Bench, the incident occurred while the intern was a student of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata and was interning with Justice Kumar between May 16 and June 25 in 2011. The affidavit discloses unwelcome physical contact made by Justice Kumar and also states that he had offered her judicial clerkship in his office after her graduation along with suggestions to travel and stay with him..As per the affidavit, the intern says,.“My interaction with Justice S. Kumar in the first few days of my internship was limited. Justice Kumar would occasionally call my fellow intern and me to seek an update on the conference (she was assisting him and his office in organising a conference on environmental protection). On one occasion, Justice S Kumar and I were stepping out of his office. I stepped out of the room before him and as I walked out of the door, Justice S Kumar placed his hand on my lower back. I felt quite uncomfortable and disturbed, but I brushed it aside.Subsequently, on 28th May, 2011, I had made some mistake in my work. In one of my phone calls to confirm participation, I had inadvertently conveyed some incorrect information to an invitee, which had led to some confusion. I thought that I should apologise to Justice S. Kumar. When I entered his office, Justice S. Kumar was sitting alone in his office room. When I apologised and explained myself, Justice S Kumar told me not to worry, and asked me to come over to his side of the desk. When I did, he put his right arm around me and kissed me on my left shoulder. I was quite taken aback and shocked, and I excused myself and hurriedly left his room. This incident of unwelcome physical contact and sexual advances took place in the late afternoon or early evening. Immediately, thereafter I left the office.I was now convinced that it was unsafe for me to continue in Justice S Kumar’s office any longer and I decided to immediately leave the internship.”.Unlike the allegations against Justice Ganguly, this time around the allegations are levelled at a then-sitting Supreme Court judge. It will be interesting to see what the response of the Supreme Court will be this time around..The Supreme Court had informed this intern that the complaint would not be entertained. Furthermore, following the Full Court meeting held on December 5, 2013, Chief Justice Sathasivam had categorically declared that,.“…representations made against former Judges of this court are not entertainable by the administration of the Supreme Court.”.While coming to this conclusion, Chief Justice Sathasivam had also relied on the fact that,.“[the] intern was not an intern on the roll of the Supreme Court and that the concerned Judge had already demitted office on account of superannuation on the date of the incident” (Emphasis supplied).In an interview to The Indian Express Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaisingh said that while she was unaware of the facts of this case,.“In my opinion, the full-court order, if it applies to an incident which occurred when the judge was a sitting judge is not a correct decision. I would maintain that, forget jurisdiction, they have the duty and the authority to investigate any complaint made by any woman that she was harassed by a person who was a sitting judge when she was an official intern with the SC. There’s no way they can wash their hands of it.”.Justice Kumar, who had served as Supreme Court judge from December 2009 had resigned from his post a week before his retirement was due, to take charge as the Chairperson of the National Green Tribunal..Image Courtesy.Website of Supreme Court of India