Irfan Tramboo
SRINAGAR, Nov 30: While the Government has recently formed a Complaint Committee to handle sexual harassment complaints in the Health & Medical Education (H&ME) Department, no such committee has been so far formed to handle such complaints in the private hospitals of Kashmir.
As of now, not a single private hospital in Kashmir has formed such a committee individually neither has there been any collective committee formed to deal with such complaints in the private hospitals.
While gathering details on such committees which should have been there as per the ‘Vishakha Guidelines’ and as per the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2015, the majority of the administrators of these hospitals feigned ignorance about such committees while as most of them did not even know about the directives in this regard.
Few among them told Excelsior that they have formed the Employees Grievance Cells but there is no particular committee formed to specifically look into the complaints of sexual harassment.
They also said that the role of such cells that have been formed is not well-defined, while others said that such cells do not deal with specific things-indicating that no such committees in accordance to the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2015 have been made so far.
As per Section 4 (1) of the Act: “Every employer of a workplace shall, by an order in writing, constitute a Committee to be known as the “Internal Complaints Committee,” however, the law has been put in place 2013,” but there is no such committee formed anywhere in the private sector.
“There is a law and both the private as well as the Government sector shall function as per the law; such committees shall be there and now that the Government has formed one in the department, it should direct those in the private sector to comply and form such committees-it can be a collective one or can be formed individually,” an advocate told Excelsior.
The advocate stated that there could be many such complaints in the private sector, but “the employees do not know where to go in absence of such committees that should have been formed.”
Regarding the awareness, Section 19 (b) of the Act states: “display at any conspicuous place in the workplace, the penal consequences of sexual harassments; and the order constituting, the Internal Committee under sub-section (1) of section 4.”
The Financial Commissioner, Health & Medical Education Department, Atal Dulloo-who has ordered the formation of the Complaint Committee in the Department-told Excelsior that the private hospital, and for that matter, all the workplaces should act according to the Supreme Court guidelines.
“Such committee be in place there (private hospitals) as well; the one that we have formed covers the employees falling under the H&ME,” he said.
Notably, neither the Government has sought compliance in this regard from the private hospital, nor have the private hospitals so far bothered to function as per the stated law.
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