In October last year, the legal corridors of the Rajasthan High Court were abuzz with gossip. As allegations of sexual misconduct against senior judge Arun Madan slowly floated across the state, the initial shock was slowly replaced by horror and then disgust.Dr Sunita Malviya was doing the rounds of the Jodhpur courtrooms trying to settle a criminal case filed against her. Each time she went to court, she would bump into deputy registrar Govind Kalwani.Malviya’s case would have gone unnoticed if she hadn’t filed a complaint in October. In her complaint, Malviya wrote that through Kalwani, Justice Madan had made a sexual proposition to her. According to the complaint, Kalwani had said that the judge would help her get out of the case. When Malviya levied these allegations of sexual harassment and corruption against Madan, the repercussions were felt across the entire state. Five months after the charges surfaced, Kalwani was suspended and Madan resigned He sent his resignation to President A P J Abdul Kalam after a three-judge committee probing the charges submitted its report to the Chief Justice.The committee, constituting an in-house procedure of inquiry appointed last November by the then CJI G B Pattanaik, held hearings in both Jaipur and Jodhpur before submitting its confidential findings. In fact, the committee held two rounds of inquiry and gave two separate reports, one confirming the sex-related allegation and another a corruption charge. Oddly enough, the CJI forced Madan to resign only after the second indictment.The resignation came amid increasing hostility from lawyers of the Rajasthan High Court Bar Council, who were boycotting judge Arun Madan’s court and had demanded that no work should be allotted to him till he is cleared of all the sexual misconduct and corruption charges.‘‘The fact that he has submitted his resignation indicates guilt,” was lawyer Manish Bhandari first reaction on hearing the news of his resignation. As president of the Rajasthan High Court Bar Association, Bhandari spearheaded the campaign against Madan. ‘‘We consider this as a victory and a result of our long agitation,’’ he said.‘‘The resignation has also cleared the air within the Rajasthan judiciary,’’ Bhandari said. ‘‘The case brought disrepute to the judiciary. Now the system has been cleaned up and slowly people’s faith will be restored.’’
