Parl doesn’t have panel to check sexual harassment yet

NEW DELHI: If Rajya Sabha deputy chairman PJ Kurien agrees to a suggestion made by BSP member Satish Chandra Misra in the Upper House on Tuesday, a Parliamentary committee to look into sexual harassment related grievance of our parliamentarians might soon come into existence.

Misra’s suggestion — and the assurance to have it examined — comes two years after Parliament passed the landmark law on sexual harassment.

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, requires every workplace with more than 10 employees to set up an internal complaints committee MANEKA GANDHI, women and child development minister

to look into sexual harassment related grievances within 90 days or face penalty.

The issue came up in Rajya Sabha during a discussion on the working of the women and child development (WCD) ministry. As WCD minister Maneka Gandhi informed the House that the government has not been successful in implementing the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, Bahujan Samaj Party MP Satish Chandra Misra asked, “… what about constituting

a committee by the Parliament? This is I think most necessary now.”

Naresh Gujral, Akali Dal MP quipped that Gandhi was “sitting at the right place to do that.”

Gandhi replied that though she was all ready for a committee and “it has to be done” but it was not for her to decide. “Now that you have brought it up, it is really for the Speaker and the Chairman to constitute a committee. A lot of staff works here.”

But Misra persisted, Quoting Article 51 A, that provides for renouncing practices derogatory to the dignity of women, the senior BSP leader said that “we need something in this House.”

With Misra not relenting, Rajya Sabha deputy speaker PJ Kurien assured the House that the “suggestion will be examined.”

Though the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha secretariat have set up complaints committee for its staff but it does not cover the Parliamentarians.

Gandhi conceded before the House that implementation of the legislation has remained unsatisfactory. “Most of the government and certainly 90 % of the private sector have still not got the committees. We are trying to find a way in which we can make them do this” Gandhi informed the House.