HC tells BARC to act promptly on sexual harassment plaint

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has asked the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) to expeditiously look into complaint of sexual harassment made by a woman employee and pla-ce it before its internal complaints committee. It also directed BARC to look into any other pending complaints of sexual harassment in the government organisation, which comes under the Department of Atomic Energy.

The division bench of Justices Akil Kureshi and S.J. Kathawalla was hearing a plea filed by a woman, who works with BARC, challenging an Oct-ober 2012 decision passed by the “Women’s Cell” at the research facility that had dismissed her compl-aint of sexual harassment. The petitioner had made the said complaint before her employers in May 2012. She had made complaints against several of her colleagues and requested the Women’s Cell to take appropriate action.

The cell ruled that her complaint “did not fall within the purview of sexual harassment”. She then approached the high court.

As per the petitioner, though the Women's Cell at BARC was headed by a woman employee and majority of its members were females, it did not have any independent member. Therefore, she alleged, the cell was not in accordance with the Vishaka guidelines and the Act, and was thus, unfit to deal with her complaint.

The counsel for BARC, however, maintained before the HC that its cell was proper and that the petitioner’s complaint did not “prima facie disclose any element of sexual harassment”.