Four retired judges will have a public hearing of the #MeToo movement which has taken India by a storm. The decision was announced by Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi on Friday.
"I believe in all of them. I believe in the pain and trauma behind every single complainant. I am proposing to set up a committee with senior judicial and legal persons as members to look into all issues emanating from the #MeToo campaign," Gandhi was quoted as saying by PTI.
"The committee will look into the legal and institutional framework which is in place for handling complaints of sexual harassment, including some of the complaints if required, and advise the ministry on how to strengthen these," she added.
The MeToo movement began when actress Tanushree Dutta said that acclaimed director Nana Patekar had sexually assaulted and harassed her.
Union minister MJ Akbar was also named. Force magazine's editor Ghazala Wahab had written a detailed piece in The Wire explaining how Akbar molested her when he was the editor of Asian Age. He is the first political figure to be named in the movement where most men have been from the media or the film industry.
