A Woman lawyer of the Ahmedabad Metropolitan Court has lodged a complaint before the Bar Council of Gujarat (BCG) against her male colleague for making derogatory remarks against women during the trial of a case. The case pertains to a sexual assault on a foreign girl student by a local plumber.

In her complaint, Meena Jagtap has demanded punitive steps against defence lawyer Sanjay Prajapati for making anti-woman statements in the open court, to set an example since such instances have become quite frequent in the courts.

According to the details of the case, Prajapati was asking some awkward personal questions to the complainant girl, during her cross-examination in the court of Metropolitan Magistrate M B Bundeliya last month.

At this point, Jagtap, who was appearing along with the prosecution in the case, asked to run the trial on-camera.

At this juncture, Prajapati ‘jokingly’ told Jagtap that had he been a woman, he could have got men imprisoned everyday by filing cases against them on regular basis.

Jagtap raised strong objection to this, and on her insistence, the magistrate took Prajapati’s words on record.

“I have demanded punitive steps against Prajapati like contempt of court since he made derogatory references to females in the open court,” Jagtap told Newsline.

She added: “Besides, instances of such remarks against women during court trials have become a regularity. It is against the professional ethics of a lawyer and shows the sensitivity of many male advocates towards genuine female issues.”

Jagtap said that what Prajapati said implied that all the cases lodged by women against men are false.

... contd.