MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court recommended criminal and disciplinary action against the president of a Bar Association for allegedly sexually harassing a woman court staff at Ramanathapuram in April this year.
The issue came to the notice of the High Court following a petition filed by advocate S Ramanathan, who raised this sexual harassment complaint against Bar Association President advocate N Muniyasamy before a lower court. “Not only was there no action taken on my complaint, I was instead implicated in a criminal case, on charges of uttering obscene words in public, based on a complaint filed by Muniyasamy,” Ramanathan claimed and requested the court to direct police to register a complaint against Muniyasamy.
Since an allegation of sexual harassment within court premises was being made, Justice GR Swaminathan sought a report from the Principal District Judge, Ramanathapuram. The report revealed that a woman staff had alleged she was being disturbed by Muniyasamy and had requested to be transferred to another court.
Her grievance was then forwarded to the Gender Sensitisation and Internal Complaints Committee of Ramanathapuram, but as she was already transferred by that time, she did not wish to pursue the matter further, Justice Swaminathan noted from the report. The alleged incident was also captured in the CCTV and the footage is available, he added.