{"id":242244,"date":"2023-05-13T19:28:57","date_gmt":"2023-05-13T13:58:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=242244"},"modified":"2023-05-13T19:28:57","modified_gmt":"2023-05-13T13:58:57","slug":"lack-of-committees-against-sexual-harassment-is-disquieting-says-sc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/lack-of-committees-against-sexual-harassment-is-disquieting-says-sc\/","title":{"rendered":"Lack of committees against sexual harassment is disquieting, says SC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The post is based on the article <\/span><b>\u201cLack of committees against sexual harassment is disquieting, says SC\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> published in<\/span><b> The Hindu <\/b>on <b>13th May 2023<\/b><\/p>\n<h2><b>What is the News?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Supreme Court has said that there are \u201cserious lapses\u201d and \u201cuncertainty\u201d in the implementation of the Protection of Women from Sexual Harassment (PoSH) Act leaving many working women no choice but to leave their jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>What are the observations made by the Supreme Court on the PoSH Act?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Working women are reluctant to report instances of sexual harassment either due to uncertainty about whom to approach or because of their lack of confidence in the process itself and its outcome.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The court referred to a newspaper survey which revealed that out of 30 national sports federations in the country, only 16 had constituted Internal Complaints Committees mandated under the 2013 Act.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hence, the court directed the Union, States and Union Territories to undertake a time-bound exercise to verify whether Ministries, Departments, government organizations, authorities etc had constituted Internal Complaints Committees (ICCs) under the Act.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These bodies have been ordered to publish the details of their respective committees on their websites.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>What is the Protection of Women from Sexual Harassment (PoSH) Act,2013?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/sexual-harassment-of-women-at-the-workplace-explained-pointwise\/\"><b>Click Here to read<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><b>What does the PoSH Act say about the complaints&#8217; committee?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The PoSH Act mandates that <\/span><b>every employer must constitute an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at each office or branch that has 10 or more employees. It defined various aspects of sexual harassment and lay down procedures for action in case of a complaint.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>What is the procedure for a complaint under the Act?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is not compulsory for the aggrieved victim to file a complaint for the ICC to take action. If the woman cannot complain because of physical or mental incapacity or death or otherwise, her legal heir may do so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Under the Act, the complaint must be made within three months from the date of the incident. However, the ICC can \u201cextend the time limit\u201d if it is satisfied that the circumstances were such which prevented the woman from filing a complaint within the said period.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After receiving the complaint, the ICC may either forward the victim\u2019s complaint to the police or it can start an inquiry that has to be completed within 90 days. The ICC has powers similar to those of a civil court in respect of summoning and examining any person on oath and requiring the discovery and production of documents.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When the inquiry is completed, the ICC must provide a report of its findings to the employer within 10 days. The report must also be made available to both parties.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If either the aggrieved woman or the respondent is not satisfied, they may appeal in court within 90 days.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: The post is based on the article \u201cLack of committees against sexual harassment is disquieting, says SC\u201d published in The Hindu on 13th May 2023 What is the News? The Supreme Court has said that there are \u201cserious lapses\u201d and \u201cuncertainty\u201d in the implementation of the Protection of Women from Sexual Harassment (PoSH) Act&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/lack-of-committees-against-sexual-harassment-is-disquieting-says-sc\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Lack of committees against sexual harassment is disquieting, says SC<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,7965,9],"tags":[10498],"class_list":["post-242244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-miscellaneous-daily-factly-articles","category-public","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}