Bombay HC issues complete gag order for workplace sexual harassment cases

In the first ever complete gag order the Bombay High Court has issued a series of stringent guidelines for hearing dealing and reporting on cases pertaining to the Prevention of Sexual Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act 2013As per the order by Justice GS Patel all such matters shall be heard either in camera or in the judges chambers orders cannot be passed in open court or uploaded on the high courts official website and the media has been prohibited from reporting the proceedings or the verdicts without the courts permissionJustice Patels detailed order which make POSH cases virtually at par with the existing guidelines for rape cases states that violation of the same or publishing the concerned partys names or other details even if in the public domain would be treated as contempt of courtHe observed that since there are no set guidelines for such matters his initial order would set a working protocol for the future orders hearings case file management and would be revised or modified as neededThese minimum guidelines issued now deal with the format of filing orders in POSH cases the filing protocols grant of access by the registry hearings directions to the certified copy department public access breach etcAlso read Bombay HC dismisses womans plea alleging harassment by Shiv Sena MP Sanjay RautBoth sides and all parties and advocates as also witnesses are forbidden from disclosing the contents of any order judgment or filing to the media or publishing any such material in any mode or fashion by any means including social media without specific leave of the court the court said on the media disclosure partThe judge added that it was imperative to protect the identities of the parties from disclosure even accidental disclosure in such proceedings in the interests of both sides and the endeavour would be to anonymise the identities of the partiesThe orders came in a hearing of a POSH case involving a major bluechip company and its woman staffer who was represented by advocate Abha SinghWhen contacted lawyer flatly declined comments citing the high court guidelinesAmong the highlights are parties names shall be replaced with A v B etc the order will mention them as only Plaintiff Defendent No 1 etc no reference to any personally identifiable information PII like email mobile or phone numbers addresses etc and no witness names and addresses shall be mentionedAll ordersjudgements shall be delivered in private not in open court but only in the judges chambers or in camera with online or hybrid facility not allowed in the presence of the litigants and lawyers and others including most of the court staff to leave the courtOrders cant be published without courts direction and it any order is to be released into public domain this will require a specific order of the court This will be on the condition that only the fully anonymised version of the order of judgement is let into the public domain for publication said Justice PatelBoth sides all parties and advocates and witnesses are forbidden from disclosing the contents of any order judgment or filing to the media or publishing any such material in any mode or fashion by any means including social media without specific leave of the court as per the guidelinesThere are strict restrictions barring anyone other than the AdvocateonRecord to inspect or copy any filingsorders the entire record will be kept sealed and not handed over to anybody without the courts order witness depositions would be strictly not uploaded under any circumstances and so onAny breaches of the guidelines by all persons including the media would invite contempt of court proceedings as per Justice Patels orderThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever