The Delhi High Court has held that there is “absolutely nothing” that limits the scope of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (SHW Act) to cases where a woman employee is sexually harassed by another employee working in her own office or department, but also extends to cases where the delinquent employee is employed elsewhere. The Court said equalising of sexes in every aspect of life is a constitutional imperative and the working environment is required to be as safe and secure for women as it is for men. “Even an apprehension, by a woman, that her safety might be compromised or endangered in the workplace is, therefore, abhorrent to our constitutional ethos,” it said.
A two-judge bench upheld an order passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) dismissing an IRS officer’s plea challenging the jurisdiction of an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) issuing him a notice, asking him to appear before it in relation to a sexual harassment complaint made against him by a woman officer. “There is absolutely nothing in the SHW Act which limits its scope only to cases where a woman employee is sexually harassed by another employee working in her own office and excepts its application where the delinquent employee is employed elsewhere. The tribunal has also held so, and we completely agree. We have, nonetheless, perused the provisions invoked…to discern whether any such exception can be read into the SHW Act by implication, and we are convinced that the answer has to be in the negative,” the bench said. It also agreed with the tribunal that there is nothing in section 11(1) of the Act that would restrict its application only to cases where an officer against whom sexual harassment is being alleged is the employee of the department where the complainant is working.
Relying on previous judgments, the bench said any interpretation of the provisions of the SHW Act that downplays or impedes the complete achievement and implementation of one or more of its objectives must be firmly eschewed. The High Court was hearing a plea moved by a 2010-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer accused of sexually harassing an officer in a different department of a Union Ministry. The woman filed a complaint with the ICC of her department after which the officer received a notice from the committee, asking him to appear. However, he approached the CAT, questioning the ICC’s jurisdiction to look into the woman’s complaint. It dismissed the officer’s plea after which he approached the court where his counsel contended that the SHW Act would apply only if a woman has allegedly been sexually harassed by a colleague in her own department.