Indian Supreme Court declines to include LGBTQ people in sexual harassment law
After the Indian Supreme Court ruled against marriage equality in October, it declined to include LGBTQ people in regulations against sexual harassment.
Justices Bangalore Venkataramiah Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan said the existing 2013 law against sexual harassment in the workplace cannot be made gender-neutral in order to include the LGBTQ community.
The judges observed the focus will be lost from the principal goal of preventing sexual harassment of women in the workplace if such amendments to the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 are made. “If a person other than an ‘aggrieved woman’ is subjected to sexual harassment, the answer does not lie by amending the existing regulations,” the judges who heard the petition said. “It would be inappropriate to direct the amendments to be made to the 2013 regulations as otherwise the whole purpose and object of the said regulations would be diluted and denuded of its effect.” Vibha Datta Makhija, a senior activist, appeared before the bench for the plaintiff and said the regulations should provide gender-neutral protections and include LGBTQ people.
She also said the regulations are inadequate, given LGBTQ people and other groups are constitutionally recognized. The Supreme Court, however, relied upon previous rulings that stated a constitutional court would not issue a “writ of mandamus” to a legislature or to a rule-making body to enact a law on a particular subject.
