Madhya Pradesh: Civil Judge resigns after a judicial officer she accused of harassment was elevated to the High Court

A female civil judge from Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh tendered her resignation after a judicial officer, whom she had accused of mental harassment, was elevated to the Madhya Pradesh High Court. District Judge Rajesh Kumar Gupta was elevated to the High Court through a central government notification on Monday (28th July). Hours later, civil judge Aditi Kumar Sharma wrote a resignation letter to the High Court Chief Justice expressing her disappointment.

“With every ounce of my moral strength and emotional exhaustion, I hereby resign from judicial service not because I lost faith in justice, but because justice lost its way inside the very institution sworn to protect it,” the judge wrote.

The judge expressed her despair over being let down by the judicial system. “But today, I write this with a shattered spirit and the ache of betrayal. Not at the hands of a criminal or an accused, but at the hands of the very system I swore to serve,” she said. “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,” the judge added.

She expressed resentment for not being given an opportunity to be heard despite citing documented facts against Gupta. “Shri Rajesh Kumar Gupta, who orchestrated my suffering, was not questioned, was rewarded, recommended, elevated, given a pedestal instead of a summons. The man I accused not lightly, not anonymously, but with documented facts and the raw courage only a wounded woman can summon was not even asked to explain. No inquiry. No notice. No hearing. No accountability is now titled Justice, a cruel joke upon the very word,” Sharma hopelessly wrote.

Wrote to the President and the Supreme Court Collegium

In July 2025, judge Aditi Kumar Sharma filed several complaints against District Judge Rajesh Kumar Gupta by writing to the President of India and the Supreme Court collegium, requesting them to reconsider Gupta’s elevation to the High Court. In her letters, she said that “a person against whom there are serious unresolved allegations must not be rewarded with elevation.” Apart from Sharma, two other judges had also reportedly submitted complaints regarding the conduct of Gupta.

Reinstated by the SC after termination

In June 2023, judge Aditi Kumar Sharma, along with 5 other judges, faced termination by the Madhya Pradesh government. The termination order was passed following the findings of an administrative committee and a full court meeting of High Court judges, which showed her performance as unsatisfactory. She moved the Supreme Court against her termination, which ordered her reinstatement after finding that her termination was “punitive, arbitrary and illegal”.

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