Sexual harassment: Madras HC notice to DVAC on SP's plea against joint director
Chennai: Madras high court has ordered notice to Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption on a petition from a woman superintendent of police, DVAC, who made a complaint of sexual harassment against joint director of the wing S. Murugan seeking to transfer him to any non-sensitive post outside the wing
Justice Satrughana Pujahari, before whom the plea came for hearing on Friday, ordered notice to the DVAC returnable by September 11.
In the petition, the SP stated that unable to bear harassment by Murugan, she gave an oral complaint to the director of the DVAC on August 3 and next day she submitted a written complaint explaining the series of events that led to her file the complaint.
She requested the DVAC director to treat it as a complaint under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Work Place (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act.
She said DVAC had not informed her about any action taken on her complaint immediately.
On August 6, DVAC director held a meeting regarding constitution of an Internal Complaint Committee (ICC) as the Act based on the complaint. Since she was acting as the then Chairperson of ICC in the DVAC, she requested the director to appoint another officer of sufficient seniority as chairperson, considering the fact that the accused is in the rank of IGP (Inspector General of Police). She also raised apprehension that the continuance of Murugan in the same office will not augur well for any inquiry since her colleagues and other staff may feel threatened to depose against him.
She further said that under this circumstances, on August 28, she was summoned to appear before the ICC constituted by the DGP, even as Murugan continued to be the joint director of the DVAC.
The petitioner contended that “his continuance in the post would make any inquiry ineffective as the witnesses who need to testify in the inquiry would all be working under Murugan and it would be unreasonable to expect that they would act independently and testify before the ICC”.
In another separate plea, she challenged the constitution of the present ICC constituted by DGP for not including an external independent member in the committee. She sought the court to quash the ICC and direct the DGP to reconstitute the committee in accordance with the Act.
The ICC constituted by the DGP comprises Seema Agarwal, presiding officer, Su Arunachalam, P. C. Thenmozhi, S. Saraswathy (retired additional SP) and V.K .Ramesh Babu (senior administrative officer).
According to her, the committee does not have any representative from a non-governmental organisation, which is associated with the cause of women and one of the members is a retired woman police officer who is still drawing pension from the same department. She alleged that the constitution was totally against the provisions of the Act. The Act only contemplates employees of the concerned work place to be members of the ICC and there was no provision for making a retired employee as a member.
After admitting the plea, the judge directed the petitioner to implead the existing ICC also as a party respondent to the plea.
