District Fisheries Officer gets 3-year jail term for sexual harassment at workplace

A Kurukshetra court has sentenced District Fisheries Officer Suresh Kumar to three years’ rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 61,000 for sexually harassing his junior Dalit colleague at the workplace.

The complainant, a Fisheries Officer, told the court that her immediate senior, Suresh Kumar, repeatedly humiliated her, calling her by her caste name and insisting that she must “obey his legal or illegal orders.” She said he cancelled her child care leave in January 2022 and threatened to “ruin her service and Annual Confidential Report (ACR)” if she did not comply with his demands.

During her medical leave from January 25 to February 7, 2022, she received a WhatsApp call from the accused, who told her that she had appeared in his dreams and that she “had to fulfil all his desires and come under his feet.” The complainant alleged that Suresh Kumar also withheld her salary for February 2022.

On February 21, 2022, when she submitted written intimation of her illness, the accused allegedly caught her hand with bad intentions and pushed her. She also stated that he threatened to kill her and her child if she did not meet his “illegal demands.” The complainant produced phone recordings in court to substantiate her allegations.

She further told the court that the accused issued multiple show-cause notices “to pressurise her to fulfil his illegal demands of sex.”

Court observations

The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Hem Raj noted that both the complainant and the accused were initially appointed as Fisheries Officers, with the complainant being senior. However, the accused wrote complaints to higher authorities questioning her promotion and even filed a writ petition. The department subsequently withheld her promotion and promoted Suresh Kumar instead, the court observed.

Quoting from one of the recordings, the court order said: “If her head was aching, then she must ask her husband to soothe her pain by pressing her head, and if her husband was not keen to obey, then she may request that her husband press her throat.”

It added that the accused also told the complainant that she “comes in his dreams.”

The judge noted that the accused refused to provide voice samples, observing that “an adverse inference can safely be drawn against the accused.”

“All these acts of the accused are sufficient to hold that he intended to outrage the modesty of the complainant, who belongs to a Scheduled Caste community,” the court said.

Inquiry an ‘eyewash’

The judge further observed that the departmental inquiry into the matter was merely an eyewash, as the complainant’s statement was never recorded and the accused was given a clean chit.

“The inquiry was held by a male officer (Joint Director, Fisheries, Pawan Kumar) and photographs of the accused with the said Inquiry Officer reflect that the said officer was having quite informal relations with the accused — they may be seen hugging each other on a Goa beach,” the order noted.

The accused had tried to prove his innocence by producing an ‘out movement register’, claiming he was not present in the office during the incidents. However, the judge found that the entries were unnumbered and squeezed between other entries, suggesting they were fabricated.

“It transpires as if it were made by the accused during the trial,” the court said.

Directing the Additional Chief Secretary of the Fisheries Department to examine the authenticity of these entries, the court said an inquiry must be conducted into their genuineness.