The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought the SC secretary general's stand - on a petition filed by a law intern who had accused an ex-SC judge of sexual harassment three years after the alleged incident - on framing of guidelines to deal with such complaints against sitting and retired constitutional court judges.

Appearing for the intern, who had created a huge controversy in 2014 that was termed malicious and a conspiracy by the ex-judge, senior advocate Indira Jaising told a bench of Justices Sanjay K Kaul, A S Oka and Vikram Nath that the court must endeavor to fill the vacuum caused by the absence of guidelines or a mechanism to deal with sexual harassment complaints against sitting and former SC/HC judges.

She said the court had appointed senior advocates Fali S Nariman and PP Rao (who passed away in 2017) as amicus curiae in 2014 and both have filed their suggestions on the issue. Jaising also requested the court to delete the name of the ex-judge from the memo of parties as her client is not seeking any relief against him. The court accepted the request and directed fresh drawing up of memos of parties. She said it is purely in the domain of the apex court to devise ways and means to deal with the sexual harassment complaints against judges.

(With inputs from agencies)