New Delhi: With 58 MPs asking the Rajya Sabha Chairman to start impeachment proceedings on sexual harassment charges by a woman judicial officer, Madhya Pradesh high court judge S.K. Gangele will be the fourth judge to face such proceedings.
Once the impeachment motion is admitted in the House, Chairman Hamid Ansari will set up a committee that will have a sitting Supreme Court judge, a high court chief justice and an eminent jurist to examine the charges.
In July 2014 the woman judicial officer resigned alleging that she could not yield to the advances made by a sitting High Court judge, Justice Gangele.
In her complaint to the then Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha, she said she was transferred from Gwalior to a remote place Sidhi in MP during the middle of the academic session. She said, “I resigned in compelling and humiliating circumstances to save my dignity, womanhood, self-esteem and the career of my daughter.”
Subsequently the Madhya Pradesh High Court Chief Justice set up a probe panel, but the apex court on a petition filed by the woman officer quashed this.
Thereafter the CJI Dattu asked the Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court Vaghele to hold a preliminary probe into the matter and he opined that a deeper probe was required.
Accordingly the CJI had now set up a three-member panel headed by a sitting apex court judge. The Rajya Sabha probe will be in addition to the existing probe.
