28 lawyers chosen to be trained to handle sexual harassment issues within the apex Court

Twenty eight lawyers have been picked as volunteers, to be trained to deal with cases of sexual harassment and to act as bridge between the victims and the committee dealing with such cases in the apex court premises.

According to the office report on the Supreme Court website, NGOs have been contacted to train volunteers who were chosen in a seminar organized by the Gender Sensitization Internal Complaints Committee (GSICC) of the apex court. It said, "The NGOs have been contacted by the Committee to train these volunteers so that they can address various issues which they might come across; to train them about possible ways to deal with those issues; and to train them as to how they have to act as a bridge between GSICC and the victims and how they have to act as a tool of GSICC for creating such environment in the Supreme Court precincts as would prevent any instance of sexual harassment therein."

The advocate members of GSICC, including Additional Solicitor General L. Nageswara Rao, senior advocate Indu Malhotra, advocates Bina Madhavan and B. Sunita Rao have chosen 28 volunteers from amongst the experienced as well as young lawyers in the Supreme Court.

According to the report, a seminar was conducted by the GSICC, as constituted under the ender Sensitization and Sexual Harassment at Supreme Court of India (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Regulations, 2013.

The object of the GSICC is to fulfill a very important public function of sensitizing the public to gender issues and to address complaints made with regard to sexual harassment in the precincts of the Supreme Court. Read the annual report of the GSICC here.

The seminar was concerned with equipping the volunteers of the Committee to deal with various kinds of complaints of sexual harassment as will be brought to them or as will come to their notice otherwise.

The seminar was presided over by Chairman of the Committee Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai and member Justice Madan B. Lokur. They discussed the responsibilities of the volunteers, asserting that they must have timely meetings and discussions to share their personal experiences.

Sexual harassment charges have started engulfing the judiciary within its hold, with instances of harassment being reported against Judges.

Read more news about such instances here.