Friday, June 03, 2016

Govt seeks comments on its new definition of "appeal" of sexual harassment "victims" in government offices

THE government has asked for comments on a draft instruction on how to provide an appeal to the complainant in allegation of sexual harassment under Section 18(1) of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace [Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal] Rules, 2013. All stakeholders, ministries or departments are requested to offer their comments or views in this regard latest by June 21, 2016 at the e-mail address... 
mp.ramarao@nic.in. The DoPT issued an office memorandum (OM) in this regard on June 2, 2016.
In fact, Section 18 (1) of the SHWW(PPR) Act, 2013 provides that any person aggrieved from the recommendations made under sub-section (2) of section 13 or certain under clauses or non-implementation of such recommendations may prefer an appeal to the court or tribunal. 
In accordance with Section 18(1) of the SHWW(PPR) Act, 2013, it has been decided that in all cases of allegations of sexual harassment, the following procedure may be adopted: “Where a Complaint Committee has not recommended any action against the Charged Officer in a case of involving allegations of sexual harassment, the Disciplinary Authority shall supply a copy of the Report of the Complaints Committee to the complainant and shall consider her representation, if any submitted, before coming to a final conclusion. The representation shall be deemed to be an appeal under section 18(1) of the Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.”
The departments or ministries may however give suggestions to this new definition of appeal to the alleged victims of sexual harassments in government offices.

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