New Delhi:
Justice Prathiba M Singh of the Delhi High Court called for having strong provisions in the law not only to protect women, but also men.
In an exclusive interview to NDTV, Justice Singh also pointed at numerous cases that take a long time – 10 to 15 years – to be decided, which creates huges problems for both men and women.
“The law only has provisions for sexual harassment of women,” she said, adding it is important to ensure that provisions for sexual harassment of men and other genders are included in future.
She said one change she would like to see is faster processing and disposal of cases under the POSH Act.
Short for Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, most companies in India are strictly adhering to this law to present sexual harassment at the workplace.
“Women are given a lot of respect in this country… Most organisations and companies have set up ICCs, but I feel two changes should be done. A small change can be to ensure cases are decided fast,” Justice Singh told NDTV, referring to internal complaint committees, or ICCs.
“Once ICC is made, there are some five-seven people in the committee, some are from NGOs, all of whom have different timings. So it is difficult to call meetings frequently. We need to dilute the number of members in ICC,” Justice Singh said.
She said there should be two layers of filters to check any complaint. If in the company level nothing is found, then the matter can be closed then and there, but send it to a higher level if something is found, Justice Singh said.
“Sometimes inquiries go on for 10-15 years, which creates problems for the woman and the man concerned,” she added.
“One thing I want to say for the future is that sexual harassment dealt by the POSH Act is focused only on women. But there is a need to focus it also on men and different genders,” Justice Singh said. “It is my experience that many times we see on both sides this is a completely avoidable situation if there is training for the people,” Justice Singh said.
Justice Singh, before being elevated to the Bench, was a leading intellectual property lawyer. She had the distinction of handling landmark matters in all areas of intellectual property rights (IPR) laws including patents, trademarks, designs, copyright, plant varieties, internet laws, etc. In 2022, Justice Singh became the first Indian judge to be elected Honorary Fellow of Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge.
