GC (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal of
Sexual Harassment of women employees and students in Higher Education
Institutions) Regulation, 2015
Introduction
The
University Grants Commission (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal of
Sexual Harassment of Women Employees and Students in Higher Educational
Institutions) Regulations, 2015 was issued by the Ministry of Human
Resource Development (University Grant Commission) on May 2, 2016. In
exercise of the powers provided by clause (g) of sub-section (1) of
Section 26 and sub-section (1) of Section 20 of the University Grants
Commission Act, 1956 (3 of 1956), the Regulation of 2015 was
established, which shall apply to all higher educational institutions in
India. Put simply, the Regulation outlines higher educational
institutions’ duties in terms of preventing sexual harassment in the
workplace. As the UGC Regulations are statutory in character, they apply
to all universities and institutions across the nation. The
institutions can use a variety of measures to ensure that students are
aware of the redress mechanism as well as the appropriate people to
contact and report problems. Reporting occurrences of sexual harassment
can be done in a variety of ways such as posting notices on bulletin
boards, establishing complaint boxes in easily accessible areas across
the campus, posting anti-sexual harassment rules on the college website,
and emailing students and workers. This article provides an overview of
this Regulation and the possible future it holds in a nation like India
where sexual harassment has become common parlance.
The structure of the regulation of 2015
The
UGC (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal of Sexual Harassment of women
employees and students in Higher Education Institutions) Regulation,
2015 is a statute spread over twelve provisions. Regulation 2 (b) of the
aforementioned statute clarifies that the term ‘Act’ with respect to
the 2015 Regulation would mean the Sexual Harassment of Women at
Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. Therefore,
some of the definitions provided under Regulation 2 of the 2015
Regulation stand similar to the Act of 2013. The 2015 Regulation
introduces a list of new terms with respect to its purpose which are:
Responsibilities of Higher Educational Institutes
Regulation
3 of the UGC (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal of Sexual
Harassment of women employees and students in Higher Education
Institutions) Regulation, 2015 lays down an elaborate list of
responsibilities for the higher educational institutions to abide by.
The
responsibilities that are provided specifically to the Internal
Complaints Committee (ICC) have been embedded in Regulation 5 of the
2015 Regulation.
Regulation
6 read with Regulation 8 of the 2015 Regulation states that it is the
obligation of the higher education institutions to provide all necessary
facilities to the ICC in order to smoothen the process of investigation
that the latter will be carried out expeditiously.
Provisions
against false or malicious complaints must be made and publicized
within all Higher Education Institutions under Regulation 7 of the UGC
(Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal of Sexual Harassment of Women
Employees and Students in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations,
2015, to ensure that the provisions for the protection of employees and
students from sexual harassment are not misused.
Regulation 10 of the 2015 Regulation lists down the deterrents to be imposed on anyone found guilty of sexual harassment.
Regulation
12 of the 2015 Regulation that deals with consequences of
non-compliance of the provisions laid down by the Regulation of 2015,
holds immense importance as it will be ensuring check and balance on the
higher educational institutions’ actions towards curbing sexual
harassment of women employees and students in their respective
territories.