Women Work Place Act

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Central Act brought into force on December 9, 2013, provides an alternative method of handling complaints of sexual harassment made by working women. The purpose of this article is to highlight some key problems with this well-meaning but inadequately-formulated piece of legislation.

 

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, was a response to the public outrage over what has come to be known as the Nirbhaya case. The redress forum under the Act is an Internal Complaints Committee appointed by the employer to be comprised of a woman senior employee, two other employees, and a social worker; it is mandated that at least half the committee must be constituted of women. Where such a committee is not set up by the employer, or where the complaint is against the employer himself, a provision is made for the setting up, by the District Magistrate, of a panel drawn from social workers and NGOs.

Based upon the complaint of the victim, the Committee is to conduct an inquiry and submit its recommendations to the employer (or District Magistrate), who is required to take action on the same. Where an offence is made out, the punishment for misconduct is as per the service rules of the employer; where no such rules exist, then as per the Rules under the Act. Under the Act, redress ranges from apology and censure to withholding promotion and increments, and stretches to termination. The Act, however, is silent on the situation where the employer’s service rules contain less stringent provisions.

For downloading the complete Act Please visit - http://wcd.nic.in/wcdact/womenactsex.pdf