ANANDH SUBRAMANIAM Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This judgment will decide Writ-A No.4492 of 2023 and connected Writ-A No.2273 of 2023. Writ-A No.4492 of 2023 shall be treated as the leading case. Nevertheless, facts and materials, wherever necessary, shall also be noticed in the connected writ petition.

(2.) Anandh Subramaniam, a Professor in the Department of Material Science and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur is a respectable man, who has fallen from grace. He has been proceeded with against under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (for short, 'the PoSH Act'), held guilty on charges of sexual harassment of a scholar of his and punished with 'compulsory retirement' by the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (for short, 'the IIT') vide resolution dtd. 22/2/2023. The said resolution was notified by the Director of the IIT vide order dtd. 1/3/2023.

(3.) In the leading writ petition, the petitioner challenges the order dtd. 1/3/2023 passed by the Director of the IIT as also the resolution of the Board of Governors of the said Institution dtd. 22/2/2023. He has further prayed, in substance, through two reliefs, myriadly worded, that the decision to retire him compulsorily from service be not given effect to in any manner whatsoever. The connected writ petition was instituted by the petitioner at a time when proceedings under the PoSH Act had not reached a terminus. The said petition, therefore, impugns determinations interlocutory, but still decisive like the inquiry report dtd. 30/9/2022 submitted by the Internal Complaints Committee (for short, 'ICC') of the IIT, the memorandum dtd. 1/11/2022 issued by the Director of the IIT, calling upon the petitioner to submit his representation against the inquiry report and the memorandum dtd. 22/12/2022, also issued by the Board of Governors of the IIT, requiring the petitioner to show cause against the proposed punishment of compulsory retirement from service. There is a more profound challenge by the petitioner in this petition and that is to the validity of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (Inquiry into Complaints of Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace) Rules, 2021 (for short, 'the IITK Rules'), questioning the said Rules as ultra vires the PoSH Act. It is this challenge to the validity of the IITK Rules that has kept the connected writ petition vibrant and alive, even if one were to regard the other interlocutory orders/ determinations merged in the final resolution/ orders of compulsory retirement passed against the petitioner.