SHRC pulls up Tirunelveli collector for ignoring sexual harassment complaint

CHENNAI: The State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) on Tuesday asked the

Tirunelveli

collector why an internal complaints committee (ICC) had not been set up for women employees of the district administration to raise cases of sexual harassment.


SHRC member D Jayachandran also asked the collector and the Tirunelveli city police commissioner why they had not acted on the sexual harassment complaint filed by a woman employee against a tahsildar and why this negligence on their part should not be considered a violation of the human rights of the woman.

Directing the officials to file their reports in four weeks, the commission warned that in case of default, it would take such action as it deemed fit. The commission passed the order after taking suo motu cognisance of a news report.

According to the article, a 25-year-old single woman, working as a temporary employee in the disaster management department at the Tirunelveli collector's office, was subjected to sexual harassment by the tahsildar. She lodged a complaint with the

Tirunelveli district

revenue officer, P Muthuramalingam. Since no action was taken, she approached the district collector, Shilpa Prabakar Satish, who also allegedly failed to initiate any action.