New Delhi: As long as there is no nature of sexual oriented behavior, all unnatural physical contact cannot say sexual harassment, Delhi High Court has said.
The Justice Vibhu Bakhru, who observed, also said that, despite being unaware, an accidental physical contact would not be similar to sexual harassment. “Similarly, a physical contact on which there is no pressure of a sexual nature and is not due to the complainant’s gender, it cannot be the necessary amount of sexual harassment,” the court said.
The Court observations came while hearing the appeal of a CRRI scientist challenging the clean chit given by the complaints committee and disciplinary authority to his former senior colleague, whom she had accused of sexual harassment.
That, both of them were working in the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) which is a part of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Further the allegation pertained to an incident of April 2005, when the man had entered the laboratory where the woman was working and had snatched samples from her hand, thrown the materials and pushed her out of the room.
The woman had argued that there would be any unwanted physical contact of sexual abuse. After the investigation into the complaint by the Grievance Committee, it concluded that “it was a matter of dispute in the background of an inconsistent environment prevailing in the division”.
Describing the conduct of man as abuse, it also said that when the man gave proof of physical contact, “it was not a sexual behavior, but it was in the nature of a dispute”.
The disciplinary authority accepted the report of the committee and in October 2009 passed an order giving a clean chit to the person accused of sexual harassment.
The Consent with the discovery of the committee, the High Court said, “Undoubtedly, physical contact or advance sexual harassment will be formed, such physical contact is a part of the behavior of sexual behavior, such physical contact should be in the context of sexual behavior.”
The court also dismissed the challenge of women for the constitution and disciplinary authority of the committee, and said that there is no weakness in their establishment.