Madras high court turns down time-bar plea in sexual harassment case

CHENNAI: Even an isolated offence of sexual harassment at the workplace must be considered as a continuing offence if it is grave and causing constant trauma and fear for victim, Madras high court has said.
Such an offence must not be barred by the six-month limitation mandated under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy said on Friday.
“So long as the victim undergoes such a phenomenon, the same is directly attributable only to the perpetrator and, therefore, would amount to a continuing offence,” the judge said.
Such a phenomenon is not just the effect of the act, but is the injury itself, he added.
The court passed the order on a plea moved by R Mohanakrishnan, a superintendent in the Nilgiris police office challenging a report of the ICC in a rape complaint filed against him by one of his colleagues.
According to the petitioner, the alleged incident had taken place in April 2018, but a formal complaint was filed with the police only in 2022, which was then forwarded to his employer in Dec 2022.
The ICC began its inquiry four years after the alleged incident, he said.
He pointed out that as per the Act, a complaint of sexual harassment must be filed within three to six months of the incident. He argued that as per law, the ICC inquiry and its proceedings must stand vitiated by the limitation clause in the law.
Refusing to accept the submission, Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy observed that the victim had been traumatised by the incident and it had taken her a lot of time to file a complaint.
The court then refused to quash the inquiry report of the ICC. Since the petitioner was not given a chance to cross examine all the witnesses, the court directed reconstitution of the ICC to redress the petitioner’s grievance. tnn