The Madras High Court has recently upheld the importance of a victim’s perspective in sexual harassment cases, emphasizing that the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (PoSH) Act prioritizes the victim’s perception of unwelcome behaviour, not the harasser’s intent.
Justice RN Manjula ruled that even if the employee’s actions weren’t intentionally harassing, they created an uncomfortable and unwelcome environment for the women, by applying the “reasonable woman standard”.
The 2018 case involved an assistant general manager of HCL Technologies and three women had complained about his actions. The man is said to have stood behind them at their desks, touching their shoulders, and insisting on handshakes. One woman was also pressured to give her coat size despite already providing it.
The man said he was standing behind them to observe their work as he was tasked with checking their work. As far as the coat size allegations, he said there was no intention to sexually harassing the woman employee and he was seeking the size in centimetres.
The Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) at HCL had ruled against him and had denied access to CCTV footage following which he approached the labour court. The court had seen the denial of CCTV footage as weakening his defence and had set aside the ICC findings.
HCL then approached the High Court in appeal against the labour court order. The HCL advocate, Senior Advocate Srinath Sridevan, said the ICC had investigated the incident as per PoSH provisions.
The Court while setting aside the labour court order observed the complainants had told the ICC what they felt by their manager’s actions. Further, the admittance by the man of standing behind them and asking for measurements had left no import to be deduced from CCTV footage, the HC said.
The court cited the US Supreme Court case Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, which established that the standard of reasonableness should be that of a reasonable woman, not a reasonable man.
The post Madras High Court upholds women’s perspective under PoSH Act appeared first on India Legal.