The main legal point established in the judgment is that the Gender Sensitization and Internal Complaint Committee had jurisdiction to proceed with the inquiry under Section 11 of the 2013 Act, as no settlement was arrived at under Section 10. The court also emphasized the duty to protect the identity of the complainant as per Section 16 of the 2013 Act.

JUDGMENT

Sanjay Yadav, J. - Petitioner, member of Higher Judicial Service, State of Madhya Pradesh, presently posted as District and Sessions Judge, Sheopur, calls in question the legality of Final Report dated 30.04.2019 by the Gender Sensitization and Internal Complaint Committee for the High Court and Subordinate Courts, and the show cause notice dated 29.11.2019. The petitioner seeks quashment thereof and direction that a settlement shall be recorded on the conciliation application dated 24.11.2018 submitted by the complainant. Further direction is sought that, the petitioner be relieved of all the consequences arising from the issue of show cause notice dated 29.11.2019.

2. The genesis of the action proposed is the written complaint received by Registrar (Vigilance) from a lady Judge, once posted under the petitioner, against the present petitioner who, at the relevant time, was posted as District and Sessions Judge, Khandwa. The copy of complaint is filed by the petitioner as Annexure P/3; however, we refrain from reproducing the same in order to protect the complainant, a lady Judicial Officer from ignominy. (For the sake of privacy, we are not disclosing the identity of the concerned Judge who hereinafter referred as "officer"). The complaint as is borne out from the pleadings on record led for a discreet inquiry, which is taken recourse to, to ensure the truthfulness of the complaint, so that a senior officer or for that any person, who is subjected to complaint is not falsely implicated. The fact finding discreet inquiry found the complaint to be genuine which led the matter to be referred to Complaint Committee of the High Court dealing with matters relating to sexual harassment of women at the work place. The said Committee noticed the petitioner on 15.05.2018 who was then transferred from Khandwa and posted as District and Sessions Judge, Damoh, for his comment on said complaint. A detail reply was submitted by the petitioner on 18.06.2018. In paragraph 8.3, the petitioner admits of having exchanged messages; though he submits that the exchange of messages were responsive in nature. In concluding paragraph, the petitioner denied of having interacted with pornographic, preferential and detrimental messages. Be that as it may. The complaint being found genuine led the Registrar General issue a show cause notice on 07.08.2018, informing the petitioner that the Gender Sensitization and Internal Complaint Committee (GSICC) has received the matter containing complaint made by the officer against the indecent act committed against her and was called upon to show cause why an action be not taken. The petitioner was informed that if he wishes to inspect any document pertaining to the enquiry, he may do so through Member Secretary, GSICC.

3. Responding to said show cause notice, the petitioner filed exhaustive reply on 04.09.2018 with a further plea to discard ex parte statements of the complainant and her two witnesses recorded in the fact finding enquiry conducted by the District Judge and allow him to appear before the GSICC and take part in pending enquiry into the complaint. In another reply filed by him on 04.09.2018, the petitioner admitted the whatsapp messages, being "consensual and flirting"OgkV~l,i lg&laosnh ,oa euekSth (consensual and flirting) izd`fr ds jgs gS% ( extracted from the reply filed by the petitioner : Page 107 of the compilation). That, additional legal submissions were made by the petitioner on 25.09.2018.

4. The GSICC in its meeting held on 26.09.2018, considering the reply and additional submission filed by the petitioner, constituted Internal Sub-Committee in accordance with the provisions of Regulation 9(1) of the Gender Sensitization and Sexual Harassment of Women at High Court of Madhya Pradesh and its Sub-ordinate Courts (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Regulation, 2015. The Internal Sub-Committee, accordingly, was made functional vide communication dated 23.10.2018.

5. It is further