Sexual harassment at the workplace is now discussed everywhere. A couple of lists have been featured on the social media accusing male professors, research students and student activists of sexual harassment. It has caused considerable disagreement and triggered bitter debate. The names of account holders who had posted the lists are not unknown. If such incidents occur in the higher echelons of academic life, nothing can be more deplorable. The ruling dispensation also gets a bad name. Feminists are sadly divided on such issues. Court rulings cannot be put in the correct perspective. The Delhi High Court has recently ruled that all unwanted physical contact between men and women should be construed as sexual harassment. However, accidental physical contact does not conform to this definition. The Delhi High Court ruling rightly puts the emphasis on intent and intent should be carefully distinguished from consent.
The case tried at the Delhi High Court raises a number of points. A female scientist from the Central Road Research Institute had appealed to the court in April 2005 against the complaints committee and the disciplinary authority in the institution. She alleged that her senior colleague had been unjustifiably cleared off the charge of sexual harassment. She was apparently pushed out of a room by the senior male scientist. The court decided that it was a case of altercation and not sexual harassment though the conduct of the senior scientist was deplorable. Why did the female scientist of CRRI complain? She says that if she had been a man, she could not have been pushed out. But that cannot be a serious charge. An ethics committee should be set up in academic institutions to back the complaints committee. What emerges from the judicial proceedings is that different instances of sexual harassment should not be lumped together.