Madhya Pradesh high court

Disproving a common complaint that national law school graduates don’t give back to the judicial system, NLIU Bhopal alumni made up 16 out of a total of 92 candidates to have made it past the written exam cut-offs for the latest Madhya Pradesh lower judiciary recruitment, according to an NLIU alumni Facebook page.

Oral arguments in the sexual harassment case against Madhya Pradesh high court judge SK Gangele began today in the parliament, four months after the Supreme Court dismissed the allegations against him.

Legally India understands from sources close to the process that the upper legislative house - Rajya Sabha - is investigating under the Judicial Inquiry Act 1968 and the Judicial Inquiry Act 1969, the sexual harassment allegations made against Gangele by a female additional district and sessions judge at Gwalior. The complainant and Gangele have already made their written submissions in the case to the Rajya Sabha.

The Rajya Sabha has written to its vice president Hamid Ansari, requesting Gangele’s impeachment, reported the Indian Express. 58 members of the house, who were unhappy with the judicial probe into Gangele’s case, signed the impeachment request made to Hansari.

The accused judge at the Jabalpur bench of the Madhya pradesh high court has survived two judicial probes in this matter: one by the Madhya Pradesh high court and another by the Supreme Court. The courts had ruled that charges weren’t proved against him due to lack of sufficient evidence.

The grounds which Rajya Sabha is looking into are the same as inquired into earlier by the courts. The gounds were:

Sexual harassment of a woman Additional District and Sessions Judge of Gwalior while being a sitting judge of the Gwalior Bench of the high court of Madhya Pradesh Victimisation of the said Additional District and Sessions Judge for not submitting to his illegal and immoral demands, including, but not limited to, transferring her from Gwalior to Sidhi Misusing his position as the Administrative Judge of the high court of Madhya Pradesh to use the subordinate judiciary to victimise the said Additional District and Sessions Judge.

Counting the Rs 40.4 lakh of fees paid to 10 lawyers for 151 cases, Ignoring the higher fees paid to the two highest paid lawyers, that works out to a mathematical average of only Rs 2,675 per case.

The Gwalior judge who alleged she was sexually harassed by a senior high court judge, has asked the Chief Justice of India (CJI) to form a new inquiry committee to probe her allegations since she suspected bias from the Madras high court committee , reported NDTV

The former Gwalior district judge who alleged she was sexually harassed by a high court judge who transferred her, said she would not cooperate with the panel set up to investigate her complaint until the panel is reconstituted.

The panel set up by Chief Justice of India RM Lodha to probe the allegations could not do its job while the judge she accused continued in his role because witnesses would not be able to depose freely, and one of the judges on the panel had transferred her before and could be biased, she wrote in a letter NDTV.

Her original account included reference to an inappropriate request the Madhya Pradesh high court judge had allegedly sent her via a court official.

A day before the Supreme Court hearing in the All India Bar Exam (AIBE), over 80,000 lawyers from 240 bar associations of the Madhya Pradesh State Bar Council have gone on a one-day token strike today to protest the exam, which they say is “unconstitutional” and causes unnecessary hardship on students.