Amit Shah to Head New Panel Set up to Examine Sexual Harassment at Workplace

Union Home Minister Amit Shah to head the panel of Group of Ministers (GoM) set up to examine sexual harassment at workplace complaints.

New Delhi: The central government has reconstituted the Group of Ministers (GoM) on sexual harassment at workplace, with Union Ministers Amit Shah, Smriti Irani and Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ as its new members.

A statement issued by the government read, “The government has reconstituted the Group of Ministers on Sexual Harassment at Workplace with members — Amit Shah, Home Affairs Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister, ‘Nishank’, Human Resource Development Minister, and Smriti Irani, Women and Child Development Minister.”

The GoM will continue to be given administrative support by the Home Ministry, it added.

In 2018, the government constituted a GoM to examine the existing legal and institutional frameworks for dealing with matters of sexual harassment of women at the workplace.

The GoM was chaired by then Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, with members being Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and Maneka Sanjay Gandhi.

This move of restructuring the committee comes months after the #metoo movement stirred the nation, with several claims being made against former minister MJ Akbar, and one on Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi too.

While Akbar filed a defamation case against one of the accusers, Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi was given a clean chit in the case after the panel probing the allegations concluded that ‘it found no substance’ in the woman’s testimony.

The GoM in 2018 was set up to recommend action required for effective implementation of the existing provisions as well as for strengthening the existing legal and institutional frameworks for addressing issues related to sexual harassment at the workplace.

With IANS inputs