Harassed cop wants boss shifted out

Through another plea, she challenged the formation of the Internal Complaint Committee (ICC), to go into her complaint, as not in accordance with rules.

Justice Sathrughana Pujahari before whom the two petitions moved by the victim officer came up on Friday, directed the petitioner to implead ICC in her pleas and posted the case for further hearing to Tuesday.

The petitioner had contended that while being the Superintendent of Police at DVAC and unable to tolerate the harassment, she lodged a complaint on 4 August, explaining the series of events and sought the director to treat it as a complaint under Sexual Harassment of Women at Work Place (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act.

Also, noting that she withdrew as chairperson from the ICC in DVAC and requested the director to appoint another officer of enough seniority as chairperson since the accused is in the IGP rank, she said, “I also expressed my apprehension that the continuance of Murugan in the same office will not augur well for any inquiry, since my colleagues and other staff may feel threatened to depose against him.”

“Under such circumstances, on August 28, I was summoned to appear before the ICC constituted by the DGP, even as Murugan continued to be the joint director of the DVAC,” she added.

Stating that the officer against whom she made a complaint of sexual harassment is the second-in-command of the DVAC and wields influence over all his subordinates, the victim officer in her petition submitted that, “Since most of the officers in the impending enquiry as well as the material evidence such as CCTV footage are likely to be under his control it is absolutely necessary to transfer him.”

Through another petition, the victim officer challenged the constitution of the present ICC itself. Referring to a memo issued by the Centre, the petitioner said as per section 4 of the Act in addition to appointing senior officers, a person associated with an NGO ought to be appointed to prevent the possibility of any undue pressure or influence from senior level officers. But the above objective was defeated as all members appointed to ICC were drawn from the police department.