New Delhi, July 21
Even as the issue of sexual harassment at workplace again took centre stage today, with the junior Indian women’s hockey team accusing its coach of misconduct, the government is slow as ever on the promised law to bar the malpractice.

Drafted way back in 2007 by the National Commission for Women (NCW), the path-breaking “Protection of Women Against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill”, remains in consultation stages. It has been shunted between the Law and Women and Child Development (WCD) ministries more than once, recently prompting NCW chairperson Girija Vyas to say she was disappointed with the government’s apathy towards commission’s legal initiatives. Though she hoped the Bill would be tabled in Parliament’s forthcoming session, the prospects look dim.

The Tribune has learnt that the redrafted Bill (accommodating law ministry’s concerns, including a mechanism to sift out malicious and false complaints) has now been circulated for inter-ministerial consultations, after which it will go to the Cabinet. Only after Cabinet’s nod can it come to Parliament. “We are aiming for the winter session,” WCD ministry sources said.

With the legal protection missing, women continue to underreport sexual harassment at workplace despite strong evidence of harassment. Sanhita, a Kolkata-based women’s group, has documented such cases and found that 95 per cent women respondents agree to the probability of women facing sexual harassment at workplace being “very real”. In the private sector, Sanhita found 68 per cent cases of sexual harassment were committed by the boss, who enjoys more control than employers in public sector.

Data collected by The Tribune shows only 1,798 cases of workplace sexual harassment were reported by women nationwide between 2005 and 2010. The highest complaints — 1,425 — were reported in Madhya Pradesh, followed by 229 in Delhi, 114 in Andhra Pradesh, 23 in UP and four in Meghayala. Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Nagaland, Manipur and Assam’s women commissions said they received no case while Punjab only received three — two in 2005, one in 2010.

According to the Protection of Women against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill 2007, no woman employee at a workplace shall be subjected to sexual harassment, including unwelcome sexually determined behaviour, physical contact, advances, sexually coloured remarks, showing of pornography, sexual demand, requiring of sexual favours or any unwelcome conduct of such nature whether verbal, textual, physical, graphic or electronic. It provides for conciliation, failing which the accused (if proved guilty through an inquiry) would be required to pay compensation, to be calculated on the basis of physical and mental trauma caused to the victim.

The Bill, for the first time, covers workers in the private and unorganised sector. It requires employers to set up internal complaint committees, puts the onus of protecting women on the employer and grants to the complainant and the respondent complete immunity from information disclosure under the Right to Information Act.

Merits of the law apart, the fact is that it is already 13 years late. It was in 1997 in the Vishakha versus State of Rajasthan judgment that the Supreme Court laid down guidelines for women’s safety at workplace and asked the Government to create mechanisms to enforce these guidelines. Notably, the US pioneered such a law in 1969.

WCD Minister Krishna Tirath said: “Areas such as coaching, as in the case of Indian hockey team, are covered in the meaning of workplace, as per the new Bill. We are in the process of preparing a cabinet note for the Bill. We hope to bring it to the cabinet soon and then to Parliament.”