List harassment complaints on dist website, Gurgaon officials told

The Haryana State Information Commission (HSIC) has directed the Gurgaon administration to list all complaints of sexual harassment at the workplace on the district website. The move is aimed at checking sexual harassment at workplace.

The commission, while hearing an RTI filed by Gurgaon-based activist Harinder Dhingra, said that details of complaints, either resolved or unresolved and those recommended to the district committee under Section 4(1) Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act, 2013 should be posted on the websites of the institutions as well as government website.

As per the Act, every organisation, which has more than five women working, has to form an internal complaint committee where complaints related to harassment can be registered.

If these complaints are not resolved internally than it is recommended to the district level committee headed by the additional deputy commissioner. State information commissioner Shiv Raman Gaur also ordered that the details of the complaints and the committees formed should also be shared on the websites of the institutions with women employees.

“I had sought information from the DC in Gurgaon about the formation of the inquiry committees in Gurgaon as mandated by law at workplaces. These workplaces included hospitals, hotels, factories, banks, and malls, which have women employed at the workplace,” says Dhingra.

Although the DC directed the ADC office to furnish details, nothing changed and so the RTI activist had to file an appeal with the state information commission.

Consequently, the state information commission directed the ADCs across Haryana to collect infor mation under Section 20 & Section 20( 1) of Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 and as stipulated under Section 2(f) of RTI Act 2005 put the same on its website.