Shillong, Sep 3: Advocate General Amit Kumar today addressed the press regarding the storm in the local legal fraternity centred on his conduct.
Addressing the media at the Shillong Press Club here, Kumar went into detail on his remarks on incidents of molestation by a city-based lawyer. He said that his comments had been taken out of context and projected as an attack on the entire legal community.
The Shillong Bar Association and High Court of Meghalaya Bar Association both expelled Kumar and demanded that Meghalaya remove him as Advocate General. Beyond these specific comments on sexual harassment, the two lawyers’ bodies had other grievances as well and want a local lawyer to be the Advocate General of the state.
Going back to the beginning of the matter, Kumar said that a female intern was allegedly molested in the chambers of a senior lawyer some a few weeks ago, a story that was widely covered in the press.
A case was registered against the senior member for allegedly molesting the intern. Kumar was also told by young advocates that this was not the first incident involving this senior lawyer, with further alleged incidents of harassment taking place in 2017 and 2024, which was confirmed, Kumar said, by a police case diary for the latter incident.
Kumar said the accused has been on a government panel since 2013 but this harassment background was not known to the Advocate General.
What irked the bar associations was that Kumar referred to these other incidents in the court but declined to give details to the bar associations. Kumar said that this was because the advocates who had informed him of the earlier incidents wished to remain anonymous.
He said news was leaked nationally on August 13, following which the Supreme Court Bar Association and other associations requested the Meghalaya High Court Bar Association to withdraw and take corrective measures as the matter was sub-judice.
Kumar said he has gone public today because the matter has been disposed of by the court. He said if something had caused anger or hurt, the lawyers had every right to file an application before the High Court and the High Court would have taken action against him if he had said something wrong. Instead personal attacks were made against him alleging he was favouring lawyers from Delhi and misusing his position.
On allegation that he had taken Rs 3 crore advance from the Law Department, Kumar said in eight and a half years as Advocate General he has not taken a single rupee as advance from the government.
He said he did not make any allegation against any member of the bar. But when incidents like the sexual harassment case take place, stakeholders have to consider what improvements to the system could have been made. If the bar associations had a mechanism in place then the intern could have approached them and the matter could have been taken up.
“The law should take its own course for both victim and perpetrator,” Kumar said, adding that, unfortunately, in 2017 the law did not take its own course and if it had, the accused would not have committed a similar offence in 2024 and again in 2026.
