Yesterday, On 22nd May, The Calcutta High Court mandated the formation of a committee to reassess a sexual harassment complaint filed by a teacher against the Vice-Chancellor of NUJS. This decision follows allegations of improper handling of the initial complaint. The committee is tasked with conducting a thorough and unbiased investigation.
Calcutta: The Calcutta High Court directed a committee to re-evaluate a sexual harassment complaint filed by an Associate Professor at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS) in Kolkata against the University’s Vice-Chancellor.
The local committee for the 24-Parganas (North) district, constituted under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act), earlier rejected the complaint on the grounds of limitation.
Justice Kausik Chanda of the Calcutta High Court instructed the committee to conclude the proceedings on merit, in accordance with the POSH Act.
The Court remarked,
“The matter of limitation involves a combination of legal principles and factual considerations. Hence, determining the limitation issue solely based on the complaint’s content without evidence is improper at the initial stage by the local committee. The committee should acknowledge the allegations presented in the complaint as stated, without assessing their accuracy prematurely,”
In the complaint, the faculty member argued that the Vice-Chancellor interfered with her job, creating a hostile and unpleasant work environment for her. She also claimed that she had been subjected to degrading treatment, which jeopardized her health and safety.
The faculty member approached the local committee with her complaint in December 2023 and also submitted an application for condonation of delay in 2024. However, the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) denied the application for condonation of delay because the alleged harassment occurred between 2019 and 2023.
The committee stated on March 5 of this year ,the complaint was time-barred, leading the petitioner to approach the High Court.
The court initially believed that the committee should have analyzed whether the petitioner’s complaint time-barred according to Section 9 of the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) Act. The court observed that the committee, in concluding that the complaint, barred by limitation, failed to consider the incidents that allegedly occurred between April and December 2023 as constituting sexual harassment.
The Court observed,
“In this instance, the accusations outlined in the complaint indicate a connection between the reported victimization and adverse treatment purportedly occurring from April 2023 to December 2023, with the alleged sexual harassment of the petitioner spanning from September 2019 to April 2023. Consequently, considering the complaint as a whole, it would imply that it falls within the limitation period as per Section 9(1) of the Act of 2013,”
Therefore, the committee instructed to review the petitioner’s complaint once more and make a decision based on its merits.
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The petitioner represented by advocates Kallol Bose, Rohit Das, Kishwar Rahman, Sristi Roy, Divya J Tekriwal, and Rishav Mazumder.
Advocates Sirsanya, Bandopadhyay and Ritesh Ganguly represented the State of West Bengal.
Advocates Soumya Majumder, Sanjukta Dutta, and Kinnor Ghosh appeared on behalf of WBNUJS.
Advocates Avik Ghatak and Abhinav Rakshit represented the Vice-Chancellor.
Read Judgment
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