SC to consider draft rules on sexual harassment at apex court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today agreed to constitute a committee headed by an eminent jurist to finalise the draft rules for dealing with sexual harassment complaints of women, including lady lawyers, working at the apex court.

A bench, headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir, said the name of the chairman of the Committee, which will also go into various other issues raised in the report prepared on its order, would be decided on Thursday.

A report placed today before the bench said the sexual harassment complaint committees at various high courts and district courts across the country existed only on paper without much power or guidelines and there is a lack of space for their working.

The report was prepared by Asha Menon, Member Secretary, National Legal Services Authority, who was asked by the apex court on March 21 to provide data on the establishment of committees constituted in different courts across the country as per the Vishaka judgement dealing with the issues of sexual harassment of women at workplace.

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“The picture that emerges from this report is that the committees are only on paper,” advocate Binu Tamta told the bench, also comprising justices A R Dave and Ranjana Prakash Desai.

Tamta, who filed the petition on the issue along with another lady advocate Vibha Dutta Makhija, said the report is clear that “there is a need to have rules to empower the committee”.

Makhija said they have prepared the draft rules which can be considered by the committee to be appointed by the apex court.

She submitted that there was a need for two separate committees which could go into the complaints of the employees of the court and another can look into the complaints of women lawyers working in the Supreme Court and other courts.

Attorney General G E Vahanvati told the bench that the apex court had on October 19, 2012 considered the 1997 Vishaka verdict and addressed the issue by directing all regulatory bodies like Bar Council of India (BCI) and Medical Council of India (MCI), which regulate different professions, to set up a committee to deal with all cases of sexual harassment at the workplace.