The Bombay high court has suspended a judge from the Mumbai city civil and sessions court on alleged charges of sexual harassment by woman staff members of his court.
Judge M P Gaikwad, who presided over the special Narcotics Drug and Psychotropic Substance (NDPS) Act court, was suspended after a preliminary inquiry found that the allegations against him could be true.
Registrar-general of the high court, Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi, confirmed that a suspension order was passed. "There were complaints, in which female court staff levelled allegations against the judge. A preliminary inquiry was conducted by Judge S D Tulankar, and, prima facie, substance was found in the complaint. Acting on the report submitted by her, the suspension order was passed," Phansalkar-Joshi said.
Later this week, authorities are expected to decide on the further action.
Recently, the HC had transferred metropolitan magistrate M Bhosale from the Borivli court to the Mazgaon metropolitan court. Bhosale is the same magistrate against whom an advocate, C K Pandey, had gone on hunger strike last week on allegations that he had passed rude comments against his advocate-wife Vandana Pandey. The Borivli advocates bar association had supported the advocate and made a representation before the guardian-judge of the high court.
