MANEKA WANTS NCW TO HAVE POWERS SIMILAR TO CIVIL COURT

NEW DELHI: Ahead of the first meeting of the group of ministers (GoM) for reviewing the law against sexual harassment at workplace, Union women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi has pitched for more powers for the National Commission for Women (NCW).

Gandhi wants the NCW to have power akin to the civil courts as it would help the body to address all complaints that come to it. The focus of the meeting would be to strengthen the women’s commission, the minister added.

“The idea is to establish infrastructure which can handle these cases. We aim to provide the same powers to NCW as the National Human Rights Commission or the SC/ST commission akin to a civil court. If we can make it stronger, NCW is good enough to take care of all complaints that come to it,” Gandhi said.

At a law review consultation of the Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act, 2013 held in November, the NCW had said there was no specified authority to inquire and inspect the proper implementation of the act.

The Centre in October had constituted the GoM — headed by Union home minister Rajnath Singh — in a bid to examine the existing legal and institutional frameworks for dealing with matters of sexual harassment of women at workplace

2 MORE TESTIFY IN AKBAR CASE

Delhi court on Friday recorded the statement of two witnesses — Sunil Gujral and Veenu Sandal — in a criminal defamation case filed by former Union minister MJ Akbar against journalist Priya Ramani who had made allegations of sexual assault against Akbar.

The two witnesses and former colleagues of Akbar, who recorded their statements before additional chief metropolitan magistrate informed the court that they were shocked when they came to know about the allegations against Akbar.