As mentioned in our last post, the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) is the first body within an organization that an aggrieved party approaches when they wish to file a complaint of sexual harassment. ICC consists of internal company/organization members and an external member to handle such complaints.

It has been made compulsory for all organisations  to include an external member in their ICC. As per the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (“Act“), the external member should be a person from amongst non-governmental organisations or associations committed to the cause of women or a person familiar with the issues relating to sexual harassment. While this does not seem like an excessively restrictive requirement which greatly limits the possible choices, there is a large amount of uncertainty regarding these terms, which poses an issue for companies while selecting external members for their ICCs.

According to the Act, it specifies that the external member should be

The external member can be a man or a woman. The law is ambiguous on this issue, which leads to this particular section of the Act being capable of being implemented and viewed in a manner that promotes gender neutrality. As the external member is not necessarily required to be a man or a woman, the search for the person can be focused on their qualifications rather than simply being for the sake of him/her being a man/woman.

Knowing the person to fill the seat of the external member is very important for any employer who is required to create an ICC. The external member is indispensable as he/she would provide an external viewpoint with regard to cases of sexual harassment. Further, the presence of the external member also ensures that there is some element of diversity within the ICC so that there is an element of objectivity in the manner in which such cases are viewed.

The unfortunate reality is that the persons being approached by companies to fill the external member’s seat are usually from non-governmental organisations. The common practice is that companies look for any member of a non-governmental organisation without any regard to the relevance of their qualifications. External members are thus, usually members of organisations that are related to women’s issues, but not to the issue of sexual harassment or to be more specific, sexual harassment laws. According to the law, it is not a compulsion for the person to be a member of an NGO, and if such a person is not found, then organisations ought to approach a person who is familiar with issues relating to sexual harassment laws and its specific guidelines in detail.

At the end of the day, with limited understanding of this Act and its implementation in the internal members of a committee, a lot more needs to be expected from the external member as he/she needs to play a more proactive role rather than a mere presence during case hearings. Despite the minimum qualification set by the Act, organizations need to look for an expert in this field who will understand the three very crucial elements of playing this role. These three elements will need this person to not only have legal knowledge specific to this Act but also have experience in gender issues and lastly a strong grip on the nuances of organizational issues to create practical procedures and processes for implementation of the Act and its guidelines. 

Finding such a combination is difficult but not impossible. However, once found, an organization will have a single resource to carry out all the activities prescribed under this Act saving them the hassle of running around looking for answers to their questions with respect to the Act, cost effective means to plan all activities with one single resource and convert the external member into an advisor to take initiatives of building safe workplaces to the next level.

 Author: This post has been submitted by Rohit Iyengar, as part of his assignment with Ungender Insights. Rohit Iyengar is currently a student of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.