Madhya Pradesh judicial officer Aditi Kumar Sharma, whose dismissal was quashed by the Supreme Court earlier this year, has resigned from service in protest against the elevation of a senior district judge whom she had accused of caste-based harassment, abuse of authority and institutional vendetta.
In a strongly-worded resignation letter addressed to the Madhya Pradesh High Court chief justice and seen by Hindustan Times, Sharma said she was stepping down “not because I lost faith in justice, but because justice lost its way inside the very institution sworn to protect it.”
“I leave this institution with no medals, no celebration, and no bitterness -- only the bitter truth that the judiciary failed me. But worse -- it failed itself. This letter of resignation is not closure. It is a statement of protest. Let it remain in your archives as a reminder that there once was a woman judge in Madhya Pradesh who gave her all to justice, and was broken by the system that preached it the loudest,” she wrote.
Her resignation comes weeks after the Supreme Court collegium on July 2 recommended the elevation of Rajesh Kumar Gupta, principal district and sessions judge in Ujjain, to the Madhya Pradesh High Court. The government cleared his name on Monday. Hours later, Sharma put in her papers.
{{/usCountry}}Her resignation comes weeks after the Supreme Court collegium on July 2 recommended the elevation of Rajesh Kumar Gupta, principal district and sessions judge in Ujjain, to the Madhya Pradesh High Court. The government cleared his name on Monday. Hours later, Sharma put in her papers.
{{/usCountry}}Calling Gupta’s elevation “a cruel joke upon the very word justice,” Sharma said the move reflected a “failure of the judiciary to protect its daughters” and signalled to women officers that “truth comes at a heavier cost than silence.”
“I am resigning from judicial service, not because I failed the institution, but because the institution has failed me,” Sharma wrote in her letter, adding that she endured “unrelenting harassment, not merely of the body or the mind, but of my dignity, my voice, and my very existence as a woman judge who dared to speak up.”
The resignation, submitted this week, follows Sharma’s earlier representation to the Chief Justice of India and other members of the Supreme Court collegium, urging them to reconsider Gupta’s elevation. In that letter, Sharma warned that the judiciary risked rewarding impunity and silencing whistleblowers by promoting individuals facing credible allegations.
She had also cited multiple complaints filed against Gupta by other judicial officers, including a Dalit district judge who accused him of caste-based harassment and another by a principal district judge who alleged public abuse, intimidation, and derogatory remarks against High Court judges and their families. According to Sharma, none of these complaints were investigated or acted upon.
Gupta declined HT’s request for comment earlier this month, stating he was bound by the judicial code of conduct and that any response, if warranted, would come from the Registrar General of the High Court.
In her resignation letter, Sharma accused the judiciary of “handpicking power over truth,” asserting that no inquiry, notice, or even a basic hearing was conducted into her detailed allegations. “The same institution that teaches equality before law… gave a pedestal instead of a summons,” she wrote, referring to Gupta’s elevation.
Sharma’s legal ordeal had previously drawn national attention when, in a landmark ruling on February 28, the Supreme Court quashed her 2023 dismissal from service, terming it “arbitrary and illegal.” A bench led by Justice BV Nagarathna had held that Sharma’s termination was rooted in unfair appraisals and procedural lapses, and that it failed to consider the “precious” rights of working women, particularly during maternity or illness.
The top court also noted that Sharma had suffered from severe Covid-related complications and a miscarriage, which went unrecognised in her appraisal and contributed to her dismissal. The court underscored the importance of gender diversity in the judiciary and said institutions must do more to support women officers during vulnerable periods in their careers.
Following the ruling, Sharma was reinstated as a civil judge in Shahdol district and resumed her duties. However, her fresh protest marks a renewed clash between institutional processes and demands for accountability.
In her Supreme Court petition that challenged her dismissal, Sharma had detailed alleged harassment by Gupta. She recounted instances of mistreatment during her tenure as a trainee judge under him. Her plea further claimed that Gupta, acting as an administrative judge, also downgraded her work performance ratings. Her petition had initially made Gupta a party to the case. It was only on a suggestion made by the court that Sharma had agreed to drop him as a respondent since there was no relief being sought against him.
“I followed every legitimate route,” Sharma said in her resignation, listing her appeals to the High Court Registrar, the Chief Justice of the High Court, the Supreme Court, and even the President of India. “But silence was their verdict.”
Sharma’s July 10 representation, previously reported by HT, had warned that Gupta’s elevation would “cast a long, dark shadow on the credibility of the collegium system” and that failure to address her concerns would deter other officers from coming forward with complaints against powerful peers.
“Let this letter haunt the files it enters. Let it whisper in the hallways where silence once reigned,” Sharma wrote in closing, urging the judiciary to introspect on how it treats those who “dare to speak the truth.”