The Supreme Court has instructed the Secretary General, who is the administrative head of the Court, to file his reply within a period of four weeks in a case relating to the inquiry mechanism into sexual harassment cases against judges.
The bench comprising of Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Justice A.S. Oka and Justice Vikram Nath have directed the Secretary General to put forward his views within a span of 4 weeks, after senior counsel Indira Jaising highlighted that the Secretary General is yet to file his affidavit in the case.
The Court directed, “Learned senior counsel further submits that she would like to file some additional material in view of lapse of time as to how processes have evolved and would like to have the stand of the Secretary General on record for the practices. Let the petitioner file the same on record within four weeks.”
The Supreme Court was hearing a plea filed by a law intern accusing a former Supreme Court judge of sexual harassment. The judge had obtained a gag order against the media from the Delhi High Court.
While the hearing was in progress, on Tuesday, the accused judge was removed by the Bench from the array of parties, after Jaising submitted that the relief now claimed was limited to the mechanism to deal with sexual harassment cases against judges.
The Court directed that the learned counsel for the petitioner submits that respondent Nos.2 and 3 may be deleted from the array of parties as no relief is claimed against them and has given the order accordingly.
The next hearing of the case has been listed on November 15 this year.