Mumbai – The Bombay High Court recently to tell a female colleague that she uses JCB to handle her hair and cannot be considered a sexual harassment song “Yeh Silky Zulfa…” about her hair, the verdict was pronounced and filed a case under the sexual harassment prevention Act against an employee of HDFC Bank.
Justice. Sandeep Mari said that it is difficult to consider the act of petitioner Vindo Kachchhav to be sexual harassment. As far as the incident is concerned, only the petitioner could comment on the length and quantity of the complainant’s hair. It is difficult to believe that such comments were made with the intention of sexual harassment. The court, in its judgment of March 18, said that the complainant himself did not consider these comments as sexual harassment.
According to the applicant, during the training session held on 11 June 2022, the complainant himself saw that she was repeatedly straightening her hair and feeling uncomfortable with her long hair. Therefore, the applicant gently told the complainant that you would have to use JCB to straighten the hair and sang a few lines of the song ‘Yeh Silky Zulf’ to make it feel better.
The intention behind this comment was to ask the complainant to tie his hair, as it was having trouble not only to the applicant but also others in the session. Before the commencement of the session, the applicant clearly told everyone that he was joking to lighten the atmosphere.
The court also said that a conversation between the applicant and the complainant on WhatsApp after June 11, 2022 shows that the applicant was encouraging the complainant to his work and the complainant thanked him. Therefore, even if we accept that the allegations have been proved, it cannot be said that the applicant has done the act of sexual harassment.
During the second training session on 25 June 2022, the applicant saw another male colleague talking on the phone and asked if he was talking to his girlfriend. When the colleague gave a negative answer, the applicant asked him, “Why is your machine bad?” The complainant started feeling uncomfortable even with such remarks and hence he described the incident as sexual harassment. However, the court refused to consider the matter in that way.
There is no indication in the charge sheet that the complainant was present at the time of comment. This comment was not for the complainant. The judge said that both the comments made in the second incident were for a male colleague. Therefore, it is difficult to assume that in the second incident the complainant inadvertently faced sexual harassment. With this comment, the court dismissed the report of the Internal Complaint Committee against the petitioner.
