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

The Kerala High Court on Thursday issued a slew of directions with regard to the requirement of setting up Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) in organisations and production units in the film industry and political parties. [Women in Cinema Collective v State of Kerala & Ors.]..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. 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 : .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;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;If women workers are employed by any of the respondent organisations related to the film industry in which less than 10 workers are employed, 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;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;From the discussions made above, we find that the political parties, which are not 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' as defined under section 2(o)(ii) of Act, 2013, are not liable to make any Internal Complaints Committee;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..However, even though the Court clarified the extent of obligations of the organisations coming under the provisions of the POSH Act to form Internal Committees, it conveyed it desire that the organisations associated with the film industry take steps to constitute a joint committee, by including the members of organisations registered with them in tune with the provisions of the POSH Act."(This) would definitely render sufficient confidence to women Actor Artists and other employees & other workers employed by the production unit ; which would in turn protect the dignity, and make the right to life and personal liberty of the women in the film industry more meaningful and fruitful," the Court said. .The first petition considered by the Court was filed by Women in Cinema Collective, an organisation which works for the welfare of women in Indian Cinema. The Collective contended that AMMA's omission to set up an ICC violates the member’s fundamental rights under Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India. Additionally, they argued that nature of the work undertaken by actor artistes is such that they have no alternatives to seek similar redressal and AMMA's own bye-law's demands setting up an ICC..In another petition, apart from the film industry, allegations of sexual harassment were raised against members of a political party and some other organisations such as Kerala Union of Working Journalists This petition sought directions to be issued to the State government to conduct an enquiry into the compliance with the provisions of the POSH Act in the Kerala Television Federation, Indian Newspaper Society, Kerala Union of Working Journalists, Film Employees Federation of Kerala (FEFKA), and the Kerala Chapters of the Indian National Congress Party, Bharatiya Janata Party and Communist Party of India (Marxist). It also sought directions to the organisations to set up a body for the conduct of a social auditing in the establishment and effective functioning of the internal committee under the POSH Act..The State government as well as the other respondent organisations contended that since there is no employer-employee relationship in any of the organisations in any of the writ petitions, no requirement for constituting an ICC existed. This pertinent contention was considered by the Court in light of the provisions of the POSH Act. .The Court found that even though organisations associated with the film industry are not employers of the actor artists in the film industry, the organisations have other employees which necessitates setting up an ICC."These organisations have their own structure, in which employees are there and therefore, if there are any women employees employed by such organisations, they are duty bound to constitute an Internal Complaints Committee, if the employees are exceeding 10 in number in contemplation of section 4 r/w. Section 6 of the Act, 2013. 57", the Court found. The Court also opined that the same does not hold true for political parties which would not fall under "appropriate government" or "local body" as per the POSH Act. .The petitioners were represented by advocates Santhosh Mathew and Sandhya Raju.The State of Kerala was represented byState Attorney N Manoj Kumar and Special Government Pleader S AmbikadaviAdvocate Rony Jose appeared for FEKA, advocate S Sujin for the Kerala Film Chamber of Commerce, advocate Ammu Charles for AMMA, advocate Parvathy Menon for the Kerala Womens' Commission, advocate Talish Ray for the CINTAA, and advocate Anagha Lakshmy Raman for the Kerala Television Federation and Indian Newspaper Society..The Women in Cinema Collective was formed in the aftermath of the 2017 case where a prominent Malayalam cine actress was abducted and sexually assaulted. The incident shook the film industry and led to splits within AMMA when it came out that another prominent actor, Dileep, allegedly hatched the conspiracy as part of a revenge plot against the actress. The trial in the case is pending before the Special CBI Court. .[Read Judgment]