gc

Gender Cell

Gender Cell1 is the body at IIT Bombay that puts into operation the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act of 20132. The act is designed to protect women from acts of sexual harassment in their workplace. While most students generally hear of the Gender Cell during the institute-level freshers’ orientation, there is a palpable lack of awareness regarding the Cell’s functioning among the general student populace. It is crucial for each student to have clarity on its functioning as it is the only body that legally addresses any form of harassment that occurs against a present member of the IIT-B community.

This article aims at demystifying the working of the Gender Cell and helps clarify some queries that are often heard amongst the student populace.

If there are additional questions that you’d like to be addressed, please do reach out to us at insight@iitb.ac.in or to the Gender Cell directly at gendercell@iitb.ac.in.

I. The history of the Gender Cell

In 1997, the Supreme Court, for the first time in a landmark judgment, acknowledged that sexual harassment in the workplace is a violation of human rights and dignity. It laid out guidelines that need to be followed by all workplaces, which was further formalized by the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act (SHWW), 2013. Established in 2002, the erstwhile Women’s Cell in IIT-B inquired into grievances of sexual harassment. It was later revamped into the current Gender Cell that derives its powers from the above mentioned act, after the passing of IIT Bombay’s Policy on the Prevention, Prohibition and Redress of Sexual Harassment in the Workplace in 2019.

The Gender Cell (GC) encompasses a range of activities including the prevention and prosecution of sexual harassment cases. The Gender Cell has taken on broader roles in terms of prevention of harassment which include

  1. Gender Sensitization during the orientation (informs students about consent, what constitutes harassment, how to approach the Gender Cell, etc)
  2. Administering the current ‘GC101’ course to educate campus residents about what constitutes harassment and guide them on how to approach gender cell.
  3. Conducting PoSH (Prevention of Sexual Harassment) sessions among other activites/workshops for awareness and education

II. What constitutes as sexual harassment in the workplace, according to the SHWW Act, 2013?

SHWW Act lays down the definition of sexual harassment in the workplace as “any one or more of the following unwelcome acts or behavior” (whether directly or by implication) namely:

  • physical contact and advances; or
  • a demand or request for sexual favours; or
  • making sexually coloured remarks, or
  • showing pornography; or
  • any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of sexual nature

The act mandates the formation of an “Internal Complaints Committee'' and defines the members that constitute it. The ICC will be set up for every complaint filed. Notably, it expands the prosecution from sexual assault to harassment, broadening the scope and laying out the instances that can be constituted as “harassment”.

III. Members of the Gender Cell

The Gender Cell is made of a minimum of 16 members, of which at least 50% are women. It is headed by the Convener and Co-convener of the Cell. The Director has a right to increase the number of people on GC based on the need. Currently, the Gender Cell has 18 members of which 5 are student representatives:

  1. The Institute Gender Nominee (Hostel Affairs’ Girls Nominee)
  2. One Institute Secretary of Hostel Affairs (ISHA)
  3. 3 PG student members

The Internal Complaints Committee (GC-ICC) investigates cases of sexual harassment. It must have a minimum of 10 members. Currently, the GC-ICC has 16 members, of which 3 are student representatives (UG girls’ nominee and 2 other PG students). A subset of the GC-ICC is convened whenever a complaint is filed, in order to investigate the case and decide the next steps.

Selection of Internal Complaints Committee Members

The 3 student representatives are selected by a process of SoP and interviews, by the General Secretary Hostel Affairs. The convener and co-convener of the cell are selected from among the senior women faculty of IIT-B. According to the Act, the Chairperson/Presiding officer (who is the Convener of the Gender Cell) and the members of the GC-ICC shall not hold office for more than 3 years.

External Members

Both the GC and the GC-ICC have 3 external members, namely:

  • Advocate Veena Gowda: A graduate from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, they are a women’s rights lawyer who has been practising in the High Court of Bombay, Family Court, and other trial courts for over two decades. 3
  • Dr. Chanyanika Shah: A queer feminist, activist, and educator involved in many autonomous women's rights movements in India since the late 1970s. They were one of the earliest members of the Forum Against Oppression of Women and Forum Against Sex Determination and Sex Preselection (FASDSP), a coalition of many women's organizations. 4
  • Dr. Asha Achunthan: They presently teach at the Advanced Centre for Women's Studies, Tata Institute for Social Sciences, and are currently the Chair of the Women and Gender Development Cell, TISS. They are also a member of the Indian Association of Women's Studies. 5

IV. Scope of the ICC

The GC-ICC has the power to inquire into all complaints made by:

  1. Women employees/students against a man
  2. Male/gender minority against a man
  3. Women resident/outsider in context of workplace:
    • against a male student or employee when the harassment is alleged to have taken place within the campus or the workplace
    • against a male service provider or outsider when the harassment is alleged to have taken place within the campus

The committee is mandated to support everyone and ensure that if they are approached, they will hear every student, irrespective of their gender.

Additionally, the policy includes provisions allowing the GC-ICC to examine complaints outside of the above specifications after discussions within the committee.

Definition of “workplace”:

Workplace in this context includes the entire IIT-B campus, but also any other locations where the concerned parties participate as a student or an employee of the institute. Thus, this includes seminars, conferences, cultural festivals, sports competitions and even online platforms meeting the above condition.

Apart from investigating cases of harassment, the Gender Cell can recommend the removal of programs/posters that contain sexually objectionable content and take appropriate actions.

IV. Filing a Complaint

It is important to note that the Gender Cell will act only when a complaint is received.

A complaint must be made within 3 months of the incident, and in case of repeated offences, within 3 months of the latest incident. However, the Gender Cell can waive this requirement if it is convinced that a complaint could not have been filed within the 3-month timeline. This statute of limitation is applied by the SHWW Act, 2013. Statute of limitation refers to maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated

All complaints must be in writing and must be authenticated by the complainant. The complaint should provide details of the incident, supporting documents, and witnesses. If any of these details are missing, the convenors will help (file necessary documentation, maintain anonymity wherever allowed, etc) the complainant in filing the complaint.

While a complaint can be initiated by mail directly to the Gender Cell or to the Director or any other Institute authorities, academic or non-academic, only when it is presented in writing and authenticated (complainant must visit the Gender Cell office and confirm that they are filing the complaint and no one is doing so on their behalf) will the proceedings/investigation begin. This is important especially when someone else files the complaint on behalf of the complainant.

If the Gender Cell decides not to inquire into a complaint, it shall record and make the reasons available to the complainant.

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What happens when a complaint is made?

1. What are the first steps taken to protect the victim?

Once the complaint is made, immediate assistance in terms of a lawyer, doctor, and/or counsellor may be offered. The Gender Cell provides relief while the inquiry takes place. For instance, when a student complains against a professor, GC ensures that the professor doesn’t act as an examiner to the student. If a complaint is filed against a research supervisor, the supervisor would be changed, and in cases of institute employees, the chain of command is altered. Such measures are implemented to ensure that the complainant is not threatened during the inquiry process.

This is a summary of the complaints filed in Gender Cell between 2014 and 2019, as mentioned in their annual reports:

Complainants 6 Defendants 7
No. of UGs: 10 No. of UGs: 9
No. of PGs: 16 No. of PGs: 10
No. of Staff: 8 (including 2 faculty) No. of Staff: 13 (including 3 faculty)

2. How is it investigated?

  1. Before the inquiry starts, the GC may, at the complainant’s written request, seek to settle the matter through conciliation. However, this conciliation should not involve exchange of money. GC should take steps to ensure that the conciliation happens through the free will of the complainant.
  2. An inquiry committee within the GC-ICC is made, with a minimum of 3 people, including an external member and the convener. If either party is from a marginalised community, a liaison officer for the marginalised group (currently Dr Shrikant G Patil8 is the SC/ST/PwD Liaison Officer) is also part of the inquiry committee. If the complaint is filed by or is against a student, one of the student representatives is also part of the inquiry committee.
  3. A true copy i.e. original, unaltered copy of the complaint is made accessible to the respondent (accused) within 7 days
  4. The respondent should respond within 10 days of receiving the copy with a reply to the complaint and a list of witnesses from their side
  5. The inquiry committee can also call on their own witnesses if they feel the need. Everyone appearing in front of the committee will take and maintain an oath of secrecy.
  6. The Inquiry Committee can summon the witness/respondent/complainant as often as required.
  7. The complainant/witnesses need not depose in the presence of the respondent.
  8. The complainant and the respondent have a right to give questions that the Inquiry committee should ask the witness on the other side.
  9. Necessary access to any documentary evidence will be given to the other side

Note:

  • No observations about the work and the behaviour of the complainant and respondent will be admissible if they are unrelated to the complaint. All the Inquiry committee proceedings are recorded in writing and audio-video whenever possible.
  • The inquiry shall be complete as far as possible within 90 days after the complaint has been filed.
  • GC-ICC has a civil burden of proof, according to the SHWW Act, 2013 (as opposed to a criminal one). The complainant can approach the police if they want to file a criminal case, and the two inquiries will proceed independently. The standard of proof (or burden of proof) in civil cases is usually lesser than that of criminal cases. Courts need to know beyond reasonable doubt that a criminal has committed the crime before sentencing them. This implies that the slightest possibility that someone might not have committed a crime is enough to acquit them. However, the opposite is true for civil cases. If no conflicting facts are found then the case will be considered true. For instance, if there is a 50+% chance that the accused has committed the crime, they would be acquitted in a criminal trial, but found guilty in a civil one.

3. What is the mechanism of punishment?

This is a summary of the decisions taken by the Gender Cell between 2014 and 2019, as mentioned in their annual reports:

Total : 38 Cases

No. of Cases Decision by Gender Cell
22 Minor action (settled through mutual conciliation/written apology/gender sensitization workshop)
8 Major action (suspension ranging from 6 months - 1.5 years or impeachment)
2 Police complaints (filed by the complainant)
2 No action taken due to valid reasons according to the ICC investigation
1 Complaint was closed
2 Complaints were forwarded to the director
1 Forwarded to the respective IIT of the student

Within 10 days of finishing of the enquiry, a report detailing the inquiry and the recommendations of the Gender Cell is forwarded to the Director. This report has the recommended “punishment” decided by the Gender Cell. The punishment is decided by the discretionary wisdom of the ICC. We were informed that they do not usually consider precedence (a practice where punishments are given based on judgements in similar cases in the past) while deciding punishments. However, ICC has access to previous reports and refer to them if necessary. The convenors told Insight that this isn’t the norm since each case is significantly unique from the other. A report always goes to the Director, irrespective of the result of the inquiry. The ICC can recommend actions that need to be taken, irrespective of the result of the inquiry. Everyone on the inquiry panel has a say in the recommendation to the Director. If there is a dissent within the panel, it is recorded in the report.

The Director takes the final action if it pertains to a student, and the Board of Governors (which has no female representative currently) decides if it is related to an employee. A brief summary (preserving the identity of all cases) is published in an annual report that GC is required to make in accordance with the SHWW Act. In the Act, there is no requirement to make the said annual report public, but the Gender Cell has published a public report from the year 2014 to 2021.

There is an appeal process if the parties involved are unsatisfied with the decision. The appeal is made to the Director; and final action is taken by the Director or by the Board of Governors. If the GC-ICC decides that the complaint is false, it can recommend actions against the complainant. Similarly, actions can be taken against witnesses if they are found to be lying or misleading the committee.

Through this article, Insight has tried to demystify the structure and working of the Gender Cell. While every organisation can function better, the existence and functioning of the Gender Cell in IIT Bombay provides institute stakeholders with a mechanism of recourse.

[1] https://www.gendercell.iitb.ac.in/policy.pdf

[2] https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/2104/1/A2013-14.pdf

[3]https://www.noneinthree.org/international-advisory-group/veena-gowda/

[4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chayanika_Shah

[5]https://www.tiss.edu/view/9/employee/asha-achuthan/

[6] Unclear if 6 complainants are UG or PG

[7] Classification unclear for 9 defendants

[8]https://www.iitb.ac.in/en/about-iit-bombay/obc-and-sc-st-pwd-liaison-cell