SC asks courts to set up cells for complaints

The Supreme Court (SC) administration asks subordinate courts to form committees to receive complaints of sexual harassment of their own institutions, investigate and make necessary recommendations.

Md Badrul Alam Bhuiyan, registrar of the Appellate Division and member of the Supreme Court committee for receiving complaints on sexual harassment, issued a notification to this end on Wednesday.

The notification asked all district and sessions judge courts, metropolitan sessions judge courts, chief judicial magistrate courts and CMM courts to form committee to receive allegations of sexual harassment, investigate and recommend in line with a High Court guideline delivered on 14 May 2009.

It also asked the subordinate courts to submit a compliance report to the issuer of the notification within 15 working days into the receipt of the letter. The notification was issued as per the decision of a meeting of the SC committee.

Justice Krishna Debnath, a judge of the Appellate Division and also chairman of the committee, presided over the meeting.

Following a writ petition, the HC in 2009 issued a set of guidelines defining sexual misdemeanors to prevent any kind of physical, mental or sexual harassment of women, girls and children at work, public places and educational institutions.

The HC directed the government to make a law based on the guideline and ruled that it must be 'treated as law' until the law had been made.

The court directed the authorities to form a female-led five-member harassment complaint committee at every workplace and institution to investigate allegations of women harassment.

The majority of the committee members must be women, it also ruled.

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