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Calcutta high court relief for NUJS vice chancellor in sexual harassment case

Dec 25, 2024 08:38 PM IST

Under the Sexual Harassment at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, complaints must be filed within three months of the incident

KOLKATA: The Calcutta high court has upheld the decision to dismiss a sexual harassment complaint filed by a faculty member against Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti, vice chancellor of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS) in Kolkata.

The local complaints committee dismissed the complaint against the vice chancellor in March this year (Samir Jana/HT File Photo)
The local complaints committee dismissed the complaint against the vice chancellor in March this year (Samir Jana/HT File Photo)

The bench of justices Harish Tandon and Prasenjit Biswas on Monday ruled that the local complaint committee (LCC) was right to dismiss the December 2023 complaint that accused Chakrabarti of inappropriate advances between 2019 and April 2023 and sought to link professional benefits to personal interactions.

Under the Sexual Harassment at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, also known as the POSH Act, complaints must be filed within three months of the incident, or within three months of the last incident, in case of a series of incidents. This period may be extended for three months if the committee is satisfied that the circumstances were such which prevented the woman from filing a complaint within the said period.

In July this year, a bench of justice Kaushik Chanda scrapped the committee’s decision to not proceed with the sexual harassment complaint due to the late filing, leading Chakrabarti to file an appeal. The two-judge bench order set aside the single bench’s order, noting that the complaint was filed much later than the statutory deadline.

“The single bench has committed error in setting aside the order of the LCC without adverting to the proposition of law. The (single bench’s) order impugned is thus set aside. The decision of the LCC is restored,” the division bench stated.

“Since the last incident of the sexual harassment is alleged in the complaint to have taken place in April 2023 and admittedly the complaint was filed on December 26, 2023, much beyond the normal period of limitation or for argument’s sake if the period is extended, therefore there is no infirmity in the decision of the LCC in dismissing the said complaint,” the order of the division bench stated.

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