IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
ORIGINAL/APPELLATE JURISDICTION
WRIT PETITION (CRIMINAL) NOS . 173-177 OF 1999
Medha Kotwal Lele and Others …… Petitioners
Vs.
Union of India and Others ……Respondents
WITH
T.C . (C) NO . 21 OF 2001
CIVIL APPEAL NO . 5009 OF 2006
CIVIL APPEAL NO . 5010 OF 2006
JUDGMENT
R.M . LODHA, J .
The Vishaka1 judgment came on 13.8.1997. Yet,15 years
after the guidelines were laid down by this Court for the prevention and
redressal of sexual harassment and their due compliance under Article 141
of the Constitution of India until such time appropriate legislation was
enacted by the Parliament, many women still struggle to have their most
basic rights protected at workplaces. The statutory law is not in place. The
Protection of Women Against Sexual Harassment at Work Place Bill, 2010
is still pending in Parliament though Lok Sabha is said to have passed that
Bill in the first week of September, 2012. The belief of the Constitution
framers in fairness and justice for women is yet to be fully achieved at the
workplaces in the country.
2. This group of four matters – in the nature of public interest
litigation – raises principally the grievance that women continue to be
victims of sexual harassment at workplaces. The guidelines in Vishaka1 are
followed in breach in substance and spirit by state functionaries and all
other concerned. The women workers are subjected to harassment
through legal and extra legal methods and they are made to suffer insult
and indignity.
3. Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, inter alia, states,
“Violence against women both violates and impairs or nullifies the
enjoyment by women of human rights and fundamental freedoms……. In
all societies, to a greater or lesser degree, women and girls are subjected
to physical, sexual and psychological abuse that cuts across lines of
income, class and culture”.
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