#MeToo at the Indian Supreme Court

I thought I’d take a break from my series about junior-prawfing to talk a little bit about a current project—rather, part of a future project. This draws from a preliminary “scouting” field trip I did in Delhi this April/May in order to refine ideas for a new research arc on the Indian judiciary. (One of my later posts may discuss the process of developing or shifting research arcs.)

The Indian Supreme Court is widely considered to be among the more progressive and powerful apex courts in the world, and at least for much of the last 40 years it’s enjoyed a remarkable reputation for being more trustworthy and “pro-people” than the executive and legislative branches. (I should note that this view of the Court is by no means universally endorsed, but it’s proven to have considerable reach and lasting power.) In recent years, the Court’s reputation has been getting tarnished for a number of reasons—the ongoing conversations about reforming SCOTUS have strong parallels in India right now—including one reason that I ended up inadvertently learning quite a bit about during my recent scouting trip.

The Chief Justice of India (CJI) is exceptionally powerful, and not “just” in the sense of representing and heading the highest court in the country. For example, the CJI is significantly involved in the elevation of both High Court and Supreme Court judges, has the power to form benches on the Court (the Indian Court does not sit en banc), and—most relevantly for this post, is charged with handling discipline matters involving other Supreme Court justices. But there’s no procedure for handling discipline matters involving the CJI himself. This proved to be a problem when, earlier this year, a former staffer accused the current CJI of sexually harassing her, following which she was demoted, fired, and otherwise intimidated. Incredibly, the Court’s first response was an informal (and closed door) “inquiry” comprising a panel of 3 justices, during which (1) the complainant was not allowed counsel or even a support person, (2) the CJI was present, and (3) the CJI’s presence was redacted from the proceeding’s records.

There were protests. Obviously. It just so happened that, on the day of the first protest, the journalist I was scheduled to have coffee with  had to cover the protest. Since it was broadly relevant to my interest in the Court, he suggested I attend myself. I did, and I ended up having some interesting conversations, making some more contacts, and barely managing to avoid getting scooped up when the Delhi Police and Central Reserve Police came to enact some thoroughly unnecessary crowd control. (I’m in a few photos from news coverage of the day, hanging out at the back and trying to look innocuous and student-like.)

There’s a lot to unpack here and I’m working on an article that will help me tackle a very small part of it as well as help me think about the larger research arc that this will be a part of. But the CJI scandal has been something of an unexpected introduction into the study of courts-as-institutions after a decade of studying issues that frequently land in the courts. I had no particular intention of diving into—or avoiding—India’s version of the judicial #MeToo until it impacted my other plans for the day. Attending the protest and following up with some of the folks I met there has convinced me that the CJI scandal has an important role to play in understanding the broader relationship between the Indian Court and Indian democracy. And that, in a nutshell, is the beauty (and risk) of fieldwork: like all work with primary source material—archival documents and data sets included—you never know how your inquiry will proceed, but unlike these other types of research your material is both unknown at time zero and constantly susceptible to change.