‘Sexual harassment bill must deal with false complaints’

The law ministry is of the view that the WCD Ministry's draft Bill on Sexual Harassment in Work Place should have provisions to check false and malicious complaints, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Sep 30, 2008, 24:54:00 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Nail down men who harass women in work places, but protect those who are victims of false complaints and wrong evidence.

The law ministry is of the view that the Women and Child Development (WCD) Ministry's draft Bill on Sexual Harassment in Work Place should have provisions to check false and malicious complaints.

The WCD ministry is planning to introduce the proposed law in the October-November session of Parliament. But a ministry official said on condition of anonymity, “There is a fear that the law may be misused to settle personal scores in offices. So, it should have stronger safeguards against misuse.”

The draft, sent to the Law ministry for vetting, provides for action against lodging false complaints or recording wrong evidence according to individual organisations’ service rules.

But the Law ministry said since taking action according to service rules is a long-drawn-out process, the law should provide for stringent punishment — even penal action — for false allegations.

Ashish Mukhi, president of the Delhi chapter of Save Indian Family, an NGO, said the provision protecting men’s rights should be so strong that it acts as a real deterrent.

“We have seen in dowry-related cases, the deterrent has not helped because the accused can taken action against a false complaint only after the case is settled. And that takes years,” he said.

But, Ranjana Kumari of another NGO, Women Power Connect, said a stronger provision protecting the men would “kill” the law. She said, “If such protection is provided to men, no woman will come forward to report sexual harassment.”

Even though the WCD Ministry does not have well-collated data on sexual harassment reported from various government offices, Kiran Chadda, a joint secretary in the ministry, said, “We receive 15-20 complaints every month. But we forward the complaints to respective departments.”

Since sexual harassment complaints sometimes make no headway due to non-cooperation from the accused, the Law ministry wants the law to clearly state that action be initiated against the accused if he refuses to cooperate with the inquiry committee.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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