Rajasthan judge is indicted for seeking sexual favours but CJI delays action

On December 14, a three-judge committee set up by Pattanaik confirmed the ‘‘involvement’’ of Justice Arun Madan of the Rajasthan High Court in a proposition to a woman doctor to have sex with him in exchange for a judicial favour.

The committee, headed by the Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court Justice B K Roy, submitted its report to Pattanaik, indicting Madan on a complaint made from Jodhpur by the woman concerned, Sunita Malviya.

But Pattanaik has not announced any action against Madan. When contacted by The Indian Express, Pattanaik confirmed that the committee had indicted Madan and his ‘‘bad reputation’’ in seeking sexual favours in return for judicial ones.

However, Pattanaik said that no action was being taken since the committee had also mentioned allegations of corruption against Madan. And so he had ordered a further inquiry by the same committee into the corruption charges.

When asked what he did with the indictment of Madan in the sex scandal, Pattanaik said, ‘‘That is on hold because I could not have taken piecemeal action against him….I am praying to God that the final report will give some tangible material to take action.’’

Highly placed sources told The Indian Express that when the committee recorded statements last week in Jodhpur of about 30 persons over four days, it also came to know of several allegations of corruption against Madan and another judge of the same high court. The committee put these on record as well.

Pattanaik said that when he summoned Madan to New Delhi last week, he did not raise the sex scandal issue and instead limited himself to saying that he was ordering a further inquiry into corruption allegations.

In effect, Pattanaik has now passed the Rajasthan buck to his successor Justice V N Khare.

The gist of Malviya’s complaint is that Madan made a sexual proposition to her in October through a deputy registrar of the high court, Govind Kalwani, who said that the judge would help her, in turn, get out of a criminal case booked against her.

With this, Pattanaik’s much-touted in-house judicial accountability seems to have hit a wall. The first committee’s report into the PPSC scam exonerated one judge despite evidence and let two others off with a mere slap on the wrist. The third committee is now busy probing the involvement of judges in the Mysore sex scam.