State’s 9 female lawyers in SC get ‘same-fate’ threat
Times of India | 24 August 2024
Kolkata: Nine female lawyers, including Bengal’s advocate on record in the Supreme Court, have been subjected to “threats, harassment and hatred” for arguing for the state in the SC on the RG Kar rape-and-murder case.
Astha Sharma, the AoR, said, “The irony — the haters/trollers want me and the female members in my team to suffer the same fate as the victim, the one they are apparently seeking justice for.That is the world we live in. And all these because we are professionally representing a client, that is it. In the last week — while you all chose to stand with the victim asking for justice for her, and how workplaces should be safe for women — you all have subjected the nine women who were at their workplace with nothing but threats, harassment and hatred.”
Sharma, who has been representing the state in multiple cases in the SC, said, “In the end, I, along with my entire team, also want that the victim gets justice and the laws against rape and sexual harassment are strengthened to act as a deterrent and that no woman, no matter where she is, who she is with, what she wears, what she eats or what she says, has to live her life in constant fear.”
Responding to the allegations that the Bengal govt is paying “an army of 21 lawyers to save its skin”, an allegation also resonated by Bengal’s opposition parties, Sharma said, “Please note clients engage and pay a single lawyer. Our teams who help us execute a matter are paid by us, and, if they have worked on a matter, it is only fair to have their name in the order and acknowledge their efforts, no matter how big or small they are.”