NEW DELHI: “Twenty-seven years of my struggle was reduced to a joke in 10 minutes...,” said a visibly distraught Sujata Kohli. She was reacting to a verdict in which a Delhi court imposed a fine of Rs 40,000 on former Bar Association President Rajiv Khosla after finding him guilty of assaulting Kohli in 1994.
The retired CBI judge said that the monetary fine meant nothing to her and the judgment was akin to reopening old wounds. "I waited long to forget the trauma and perhaps had managed to suppress the hounding memories. In the last two months, however, I was made to relive that humiliating experience from all those years ago all over again. And what does it culminate in? The verdict doesn't just belittle my struggle but mocks the very idea of justice," she said.
In contrast to Kohli’s rather composed demeanour despite the setback, the verdict triggered a chest-thumping by the lawyers who filled the courtroom with slogans such as “Vakeel Ekta Zindabad” and “Rajiv Khosla Zindabad”.
“There are Rajiv Khoslas in every society but it’s the system that lets them be the king of the day,” says the former judge.
As she recollects her trauma, one cannot help but think why a judge struggled for justice for herself and why did the judiciary take this long to award what she describes as “an extremely lenient” sentence. It also begs the question of why someone like Kohli, who was a lawyer, a litigant and later a judge herself, in her own words, “experienced the tardiness and indifference of the judiciary”.
“Whatever happened, even I didn't anticipate. Had I anticipated all this, maybe the course of this case would have been different,” recollects the former judge. The assault was a result of Kohli rebelling against Khosla by not participating in a strike called by him. Khosla, who was the secretary of the Delhi Bar Association back then, had called the strike against the formation of family courts.
“Soon, I heard rumours that I would have to pay a heavy price for my refusal. The way out was apologising to him but I refused,” she adds. Days later, she found that Khosla along with a group of 40-50 men in black coats came up to her and asked her to get up from her seat. “They pulled me by the arm, pulled my hair, and then dragged me along in the Tis Hazari court premises. I faced the worst kind of humiliation,” recalled the former judge with moist eyes.
“I didn’t know how to reach home that day and was hiding behind the lockup. Then a friend of mine came and dropped me home,” she adds. And just like today, she found herself all alone, as even those who she considered friends didn’t come to help her. The FIR was registered a year later following a High Court intervention.
The court proceedings weren’t easy either. “During the hearings of my case, Khosla’s supporting lawyers used to shout and abuse and not let the court function smoothly. I was literally prevented from attending his bail hearing. They would not let me speak and stand and would make noises just the way they are making today,” says Kohli, pointing to the triumphant slogans.
Bogged down by circumstances, the retired judge filed an application to the bar council to withdraw her complaint against Khosla in 2006.
“But my complaint was not withdrawn as the criminal court concerned did not allow it after my complaint was already clubbed with the state case, so procedurally I had no locus standi to withdraw,” she says.
In the meanwhile, there were several times when several judges passed orders which would often speed up the trial, however, to Sujata’s disappointment, her case would also often get transferred to other courts.
“With all due respect for the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court, and being a believer in the justice system myself I have been dispensing justice myself but in this particular instance, I feel that the system has not come to my aid. After 27 long years, you get justice. I think that kind of delay literally denies it and I have been a lawyer and later a judge, so if a lawyer and a judge can't get justice you can imagine the fate of a layman.”
Kohli experienced a strong sense of male chauvinism and misogyny in the judiciary even after becoming a judge herself in 2002. “Once, I asked an SHO to verify a fact in a case and the counsel in the case abused me in my court and said that I am mentally unsound. When I said that it is contempt of court, he cited my own case and said that I couldn’t do anything against Rajiv Khosla and dared me to do whatever I could against him.”
“Terrible things were said in hush-hush tones when I would pass through the corridors of the court. I don’t like to relive those moments and I hate it as I am in a good state but now I am brought back to the muck.”
Being on both sides of the legal system, Kohli says that despite so many systems in place, judicial academies conducting workshops with respect to sensitivity and gender bias, there has not been much sensitivity.
While the court trial has given its verdict, the former judge has decided not to sit quietly over the issue. She is now planning to write a letter to the CJI on the proceedings conducted in the trial court.
"I am shocked at the manner in which all this has happened. Two district judges had to come into the courtroom and in their presence, the CMM wrote down the order . . . I am going to get in touch with other senior lawyers and decide on the remedies."