Film production houses must set up ICC for sexual harassment cases: Kerala High Court

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Film production houses must set up ICC for sexual harassment cases; Political Parties need not: Kerala High Court

A Division Bench of Chief Justice S Manikumar and Justice Shaji P Chaly said that apart from production houses which directly employ actors, even organisations related to the film industry have to maintain ICC, if they are engaging 10 workers or more for managing the office establishments and wherein women workers are employed for wages.

However, political parties which don't having any employer-employee relationship with its members and which are not carrying on with any private venture, undertaking, enterprises, institution, establishment etc. in contemplation of a 'workplace', need not maintain ICC.

The Court passed the judgement in a group of Public Interest Litigation petitions filed by various organisations seeking to constitute a grievance redressal mechanism against sexual harassment as per the directions of the Supreme Court in Vishakha v. the State of Rajasthan and in accordance with the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act).

The judgement of the Court laid down the following guidelines for different organisations :

1. The production unit of each film industry is an establishment employing actor artists and other workers and therefore, such production units have to maintain an Internal Complaints Committee, if they are engaging more than 10 workers, as is contemplated under the Act, 2013;

2. Respondent organisations, apart from the political parties, are duty-bound to maintain Internal Complaints Committee, if they are engaging 10 workers or more for managing the office establishments and wherein women workers are employed for wages or not;

3. If women workers are employed by any of the respondent organisations related to the film industry in which less than 10 workers are used, then they are entitled to make suitable complaints to the Local Complaints Committee in accordance with the provisions contained under section 6 read with Section 9 of Act, 2013;

4. Since the Association of Malayalam Movie Actors (AMMA) has volunteered to appoint a committee to deal with any sexual harassment at its workplace, we record the same and accordingly to take action to notify the members of the Internal Complaints Committee, in accordance with law;

5. From the discussions made above, we find that the political parties, which are not having an employer-employee relationship with its members and which are not carrying on with any private venture, undertaking, enterprises, institution, establishment etc. in contemplation of a 'workplace' as defined under section 2(o)(ii) of Act, 2013, are not liable to make any Internal Complaints Committee;

6. In all other cases, a woman employee subjected to sexual harassment is entitled as of right to file any complaint of sexual harassment before the Local Committee in contemplation of the provisions of the act, and under section 9 r/w. Section 6 of Act, 2013.