The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act, 2013 (“the Act”) was notified on December 9, 2013. However, even after more than a year of coming into force, it appears from surveys and comments from the Ministry of Women and Child Development in various newspaper reports that many organizations have still not constituted an internal complaints committee (“ICC”) in their organization, in compliance with the Act (even though the fact is that organizations should have constituted a committee for tackling sexual harassment way back in 1997, when the Vishaka judgment was passed, instead of waiting for the Act to come into force). According to the Act, if an employer fails to constitute an ICC within his organization, such employer can be punished with a fine of Rs. 50,000. In the event of a subsequent conviction for failing to constitute ICC, the penalty can be doubled, and in certain cases, the Act also provides that the license of such employer to do business may be cancelled.
Even though the penalty (for first offense) provided for under the Act may seem minor and trivial for some organizations, organizations must be mindful of the fact that if a matter of sexual harassment reaches court and the court finds that the ICC was not even constituted as per the Act, apart from imposing penalties as per the Act, the court has discretion to order other amounts from employers as damages as well.
One such case (Ms.G vs. Isg Novasoft Technologies) was reported by the Economic Times on April 11, 2015, where the Madras High Court directed the company to pay Rs 1.68 crore as damages for sexual harassment to an aggrieved woman. It was reported that the court said in its order that if the company had set up a committee to inquire into allegations of sexual harassment, the litigation may have been avoided.
Link to the case law: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/29530984/
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Adv. Shivangi Prasad, Corporate Lawyer, External Member & Trainer, Head of Legal & Compliance, Partner POSH at Work