G.THIRUPATHI Vs. DEPUTY INSPECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is a Sec. Superintendent in the District Police Office, Madurai. Two women staff have lodged a complaint as against him that he has sexually harassed them. Based on their complaints, the internal committee constituted under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 [hereinafter referred to as 'the Act'], has conducted an enquiry and found that the allegations levelled as against the petitioner are prima facie made out and submitted its report to the Head of the Department. Based on the report and the complaint of the victims, a disciplinary proceedings was initiated as against the petitioner, by issuing a charge memo dtd. 17/9/2020 under Rule 17(b) of the Tamil Nadu Government Servant (Discipline and Appeal) Rules and the fifth respondent was appointed as the Enquiry Officer, by proceedings dtd. 3/12/2020. The charge memo dtd. 17/9/2020 and the appointment of Enquiry Officer dtd. 3/12/2020 are challenged in this writ petition.

(2.) The main contention of the petitioner is that the charge memo was issued as against the petitioner based on the report of the internal committee constituted under the Act. The internal committee is not having any jurisdiction to enquire into the complaint made against him, in view of latches. Even according to the complainants, for the alleged incident said to have taken place in the year 2006, complaints have been made in the year 2019.

(3.) By referring to the provision u/s.9 of the Act, learned Counsel for the petitioner submitted that the internal committee is not expected to conduct an enquiry on those complaints which were made after a period of three months from the date of incident. Sec. 9 is extracted as under:-