The Bombay High Court set aside an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) report and an Pune Industrial Court judgment against a male bank employee in a workplace sexual harassment case, calling the findings vague and unsubstantiated.
Justice Sandeep Marne ruled in favour of the employee, who had challenged the ICC’s September 30, 2022, report through advocate Sana Raees Khan. The committee had found him guilty of workplace misconduct, a decision upheld by the Industrial Court in July 2024.
One of the key allegations was that the employee, during a meeting, joked about a female colleague’s long hair, asking if she needed a JCB to tie it and singing a line from ‘Yeh Reshmi Zulfein’. The court observed that the complainant had not initially considered this sexual harassment.
The ICC also cited a second incident where the employee allegedly made a remark about a male colleague’s private part in the presence of women. He argued it was a joke, and the court noted that the male colleague had not taken offence.
A third allegation involved the complainant’s reporting manager, not the petitioner, and was disregarded by the court.
Justice Marne concluded that even if the allegations were accepted as true, they did not meet the criteria for sexual harassment under the POSH Act. The court ruled that the ICC’s findings lacked proper analysis and dismissed them.
