Sexual Harassment: Complainant Accuses TCS, Alleged Harasser of Delaying Court Proceedings

Chennai: A Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) employee from Chennai says she is being made to run from pillar to post after she approached the Labour Court against the ruling of the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) on a sexual harassment complaint.

The TCS counsel has not filed any documents in the case till the most recent hearing on February 20, it is learnt, she says, accusing the company and the alleged harasser of delaying the court proceedings.

The survivor says she had approached the court after being denied justice by the ICC on her complaint about the alleged sexual harassment from her superior during an on-site visit to the United Kingdom. In a recent hearing, the advocate representing TCS even accused the survivor of seeking media support.

The complainant has now accused the TCS management and the alleged harasser for delaying court proceedings resulting in causing her further pain and agony. There have been 16 hearings in the case since August 2019 and the survivor said she was struggling to maintain a work-life balance.

The survivor also said that the alleged harasser, the second respondent to the case, was using every possible tactic to delay proceedings by being absent from them. Till the most recent hearing on February 20, the TCS counsel had not filed any documents in the case, it is learnt.

According to the survivor, during the previous hearing on February 17, the TCS counsel said that documents to the survivor’s counsel would be submitted on February 18 and requested a hearing on February 19. The court granted an extra day to finish the process and rescheduled the hearing on February 20, but no documents were submitted till the day of hearing.

She said the alleged harasser received the documents on the charges only on the 13th hearing held on January 22, alleging that this was aimed at dragging the case.

She said that the frequent schedule of hearings owing to absenteeism on the part of TCS’ and the alleged harasser’s counsels had escalated her mental trauma and put her under tremendous stress, accusing the TCS management of total disregard for the pain she had suffered due to one of its employees. The survivor said all she wanted was restoration of her dignity and not financial compensation or strict punishment for the alleged harasser.

In the midst of this, the alleged harasser, also the Human Resource Manager, has downgraded her appraisal from band C to band A, in what can be termed as punitive action on his part in response to her filing the complaint against him. In a submission to the court however, the alleged harasser held that the survivor outperformed him at work.

The case is being heard in an open court, and being the first such case in the information technology (IT) sector, the media has followed the case closely.

In a recent hearing, the alleged harasser’s counsel submitted media reports to the court and held the survivor responsible for the media scrutiny, even threatening to sue her. The judge, however, dismissed the allegations.

Meanwhile, sources in the IT sector alleged that several multinational companies were “manipulating” ICCs. While speaking to NewsClick, an activist who organises IT workers, said the way corporates were undermining the necessity of ICC was “highly alarming. “Many issues relating to sexual harassment are being settled without any justice to the survivors,” the activist said, adding that while trade unions in many sectors ensure that such committees were “effectively run”, the absence of a strong trade union movement in the IT sector “has not helped the cause.”

In the TCS case, the alleged harasser is reportedly ensuring that the case is settled in his favour by “tampering with evidence and influencing the ICC’s external member”, the activist alleged, adding that the survivor “was also insulted during the ICC’s hearings and has submitted a transcript of this to the court.”

Earlier this month, a joint press statement from all the IT employees’ unions in Tamil Nadu had demanded that TCS and the alleged harasser should attend court proceedings regularly. The forum also appealed to the court to deliver justice to the survivor and instill confidence in many woman workers who suffer such a fate but are unable to express themselves.