Supreme Court directs Centre and State governments to strengthen Women's protection against sexual harassment in workplace

While hearing Aureliano Fernandes vs. State of Goa and others case, the Supreme Court bench expressed concern about the lack of committees in government departments to probe sexual harassment allegations at the workplace. The top Court directed the Centre and State governments to verify whether panels have been constituted in all the departments and ministries by undertaking a time-bound exercise. The case was heard by Justice Hima Kohli and Justice AS Bopanna. A two-judge bench stated that “It is disquieting to note that there are serious lapses in the enforcement of the Act even after such a long passage of time.” It further added, “This is indeed a sorry state of affairs and reflects poorly on all the State functionaries, public authorities, private undertakings, organizations, and institutions that are duty bound to implement the Posh Act (Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013) in letter and spirit.” 

In this case, two girl students of Goa University along with their friends submitted a complaint to the University alleging physical Harassment. The said complaints were the starting point of an inquiry initiated by the Committee on receiving complaints from the Registrar of the University. After about ten days, the appellant sent a letter to the Chairperson of the Committee stating inter alia that he had partially recovered from his ailment and was in a position to depose – However, by then the Committee had proceeded ex-parte against the appellant (Temporary Lecturer in University in the Department of Political science) and submitted its Report to the Registrar of the University. The disciplinary authority dismissed the appellant from service. The appeal preferred by the appellant against the said dismissal order was rejected by the order of the Appellate Authority. The High Court held that the Committee was justified in discarding the medical certificates submitted by the appellant as he kept on making flimsy excuses to stay away from the inquiry proceedings. It also added that “They did not see any merits in the said writ petition which was dismissed holding that there was no breach of the principles of natural justice and the Service Rules in the case.” 

The Supreme Court stated that the “Principles of natural justice that are reflected in Article 311, are not an empty incantation.” They form the very bedrock of Article 14 and any violation of these principles tantamounts to a violation of Article 14 of the Constitution. The bench added, “The significant role played by procedural fairness in the backdrop of internalizing the principles of natural justice into the Constitution cannot be overstated.” In context with the question addressed in this case, the bench opined that the Committee itself was unclear as to the scope of its inquiry, the appellant cannot be blamed for harboring an impression that the remit of the Committee was confined to fact-finding alone and it was not discharging the functions of a disciplinary committee, as contemplated under the Service Rules. Moreover, the Committee fell into an error when it attempted to fast forward the entire proceedings after the first few hearings and declined to grant a reasonable time to the appellant to effectively participate in the said proceedings. Due to this, the important facet of the principles of natural justice was compromised. 

The bench mentioned that the anxiety of the Committee of being fair to the victims of sexual harassment ended up causing them greater harm. The discretion vested in the Committee for conducting the inquiry was exercised improperly, defying the principles of natural justice. This is the reason that the impugned judgment upholding the decision taken by the EC of terminating the services of the appellant, duly endorsed by the Appellate Authority could not be sustained and was accordingly quashed and set aside. The bench ordered to remand back the case to the Complaints Committee to take up the inquiry proceeding. The top Court said, “To fulfill the promise that the Posh Act holds out to working women all over the country, it is deemed appropriate to issue certain directions.”