Woman techie files FIR against 6 IT firm staffers for sexual harassment, inaction in Pune

PUNE: A 36-year-old woman software engineer has lodged an FIR with the Airport police against six employees of an IT firm for sexual harassment and the company officials’ inaction over her complaint.
The woman has alleged that instead of giving her protection as mandated by the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (PoSH) at Work Place enactment, the company terminated her service on August 28. She was working in the company as a principal consultant since September 15, 2014.
Investigating officer inspector Balwant Mandage of the Airport police told TOI, “ For now, we have invoked charges under Sections 354-A (sexual harassment), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 67 (punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the IT Act in the matter.”
In her complaint, she said that two of the company’s employees shared a sexually explicit and defamatory message relating to her and another colleague. She got to know about this message from her colleague on June 13 following which she took up the matter with the company’s HR department. She also said she repeatedly took up the matter with four other company officials, but they did nothing. Instead, they warned her about the consequences before eventually terminating her service.
In her FIR, the woman stated that the company constituted a four-member committee headed by the chairman of its PoSH department and an HR representative, an official and the company’s legal advisor.
The woman said she had objected to the constitution of this committee on the grounds that it was not as per the mandate of the PoSH enactment.
An independent member and an NGO representative is mandatory on such a committee, but the company showed its legal advisor as the independent member and did not invite any NGO member on the panel, she alleged.
She said she had informed the company that she had no faith in such a panel and would not get justice. On July 24, she sent a complaint letter to the Airport police who then initiated a preliminary inquiry into the matter.
After persistent follow-up, the company informed her that the panel has decided in her absence as she did not attend its meeting and terminated her service for having approached the police, she alleged in the FIR.
An e-mail query sent by TOI to the company on Tuesday did not elicit any response till the time of going to press.
Mandage said, “We have issued a notice to the company to secure the presence of the two men accused of sharing the defamatory message before us at the earliest and join the investigation. One of them is based in London while the other is in Bengaluru. The four others include two officials in Pune and the company’s HR head from Bengaluru and global HR head. Two of these four persons are women.”
We have named all the six persons mentioned by the complainant in the FIR. Our investigation will establish the precise role of each individual in the matter.
(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme Court directives on cases related to sexual assault)