NEW DELHI: Delhi HC rapped Centre for naming a workplace sexual harassment survivor in a handbook it published on preventing such harassment and dealing with complaints.“How is the name of the victim disclosed in this? How can you do that? You are the govt of India. You yourself are publishing (handbooks) revealing the name of the victim and you are circulating it. It is on your official website,” Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said, listing the matter for the next hearing on Wednesday.Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) handbook was published by Ministry of Women and Child Development. Law prohibits revealing the identity of the survivor of a sexual offence, and doing so is a punishable offence.HC asked Union govt’s lawyer to come back with the names of officials “responsible for this content” while hearing a petition by the alleged perpetrator, who submitted that the matter has since been settled and therefore, sought directions for removal of his name from the handbook.
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Handbook is ‘everywhere and anywhere’ on internet: Lawyer
The petitioner’s counsel submitted that a labour tribunal order arising from the alleged incident has been included in the handbook as an anecdote, revealing the details of not only his identity but the woman’s name as well.The handbook is “everywhere and anywhere” on the internet, the lawyer said. that the Centre’s counsel submitted that the handbook was published in Nov 2015 for educational purposes, and the parties settled the matter only recently.“So will it reveal the name of the victim? Even a judgement cannot,” Justice Sharma responded. “For educational purposes you don’t need the victim’s name, right? Even the judges write ‘X’. There are directions of high court. You can’t disclose the name. Now it is punishable,”HC reminded the counsel as it added that judicial directions to protect a survivor’s identity were in place even before 2015 and the authorities cannot be absolved of their responsibility to follow the law even if a party was acting on it now. The petitioner also sought directions to Google for de-linking and de-indexing the content.