What can a woman do if the employer has not constituted the ICC - The Sexual Harassment at Workplace Law,2013

In the fourth post we discussed what a woman needs to do after filing the complaint with the Internal Complaints Committee. But what can a woman do the employer does not constitute the ICC?   

In case the employer who has more than 10 employees has not constituted an ICC, then the woman has three options –

She can issue a notice requesting the employer to comply with the act. Starting with a notice may be prudent and save time as the employer has the opportunity to comply with the act.

She can report the immediate case of Sexual harassment to the Local Complaint Committee (LCC) in the district. Sample complaint to the LCC should be worded in the same way as a complaint to the ICC.

She can approach the magistrate and report the non-compliance. The sexual harassment act prescribes a monetary penalty of upto Rs 50,000 if an employer fails to constitute an Internal Complaints committee. Repeated non-compliance of this provision can result in the punishment being doubled and even cancellation of the license by local or government authority. This can be a serious deterrent to non-implementation of the act.

What action can be taken if the employer does not implement the decision of the ICC?

If the employer does not implement the decision of the ICC, a complaint can be made to the magistrate – the employer will have to pay a fine of Rs 50,000 if the complaint is made to magistrate. The complaint may be made by ICC or a the woman who claims to be subjected to sexual harassment.

Supervision of Local Complaints Committee

Under the act, the Local Complaints Committee is required to perform certain functions and forward certain reports to the State Government. The ICC is monitored by the employer – but question is who monitors the Local Complaints Committee?

Functions of the Local Complaints Committee and submission of reports by ICC by the ICC and LCC to the State Government are supervised by the ‘District Officers’ appointed under the act – the District officers must be of the rank of the District Magistrate, Additional District Magistrate, Collector or Deputy Collector. 

Sources -  http://wcd.nic.in/wcdact/womenactsex.pdf

NCW