Case Summary: Aureliano Fernandis v State of Goa and Others

Citation: Civil Appeal No. 2482 of 2014

Appellant: Aureliano Fernandis
Respondents: State of Goa and Ors.

History of the Case:

 The Executive Council (EC) of Goa University (University) accepted the report of Standing
Committee of Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) at workplace, and consequently imposed
penalty on the appellant. The penalty was dismissal from services and disqualification from future
employment under Rule 11(IX) of the Central Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal)
Rules, 1960 (CCS Rules).
 A write petition was filed by the appellant in High Court of Judicature at Bombay Bench, Goa (HC)
and the same was dismissed by the HC.
 From such dismissal, this challenge was presented by the appellant in the Supreme Court (SC).

Facts:
 The appellant was a temporary lecturer in the Department of Political Science in the Goa University
where he started his service in 1996. In 2023, he was appointed as the Head of the department.
 Two girl students along with their friends complained against the appellant alleging physical
harassment.
 Inquiry was initiated by the Complaints Committee (Committee). The appellant was called for
personal hearing in 9 complaints. At the same time, the registrar directed the appellant to hand over
the charge of the department and go for a leave till the conclusion of inquiry.
 In his reply, the respondent claimed that the allegations are a staged conspiracy against him and the
charges of sexual harassment were baseless. He also seeked the removal of 2 members of the
committee on the ground of bias.
 On first hearing, the appellant was made to wait outside while other witnesses’ statements were
being recorded and was called later for his statements. Two days later, he received another
complaint from the committee to which he was required to respond in a week’s time. He requested
for an extension and the permission to the engage a lawyer, both of which were denied by the
committee. On the same day, the dates of deposition were rather preponed.
 The appellant also objected to the inquiry being conducted by the committee on the grounds that the
complaint was received by an ex-student which made her ineligible on the grounds that she was
neither a student nor an employee of the university.
 All the requests for extension of time for reply and being present before the committee were
rejected. This included the requests on health grounds as well. Due to his health conditions, the
appellant could not attended the proceedings and he applied to sought fresh dates for replies and
depositions. But by then the committee had proceeded ex-parte and submitted a report with the
registrar of the university. The report stated that 18 meetings were held for inquiry into the
complaints and on the basis of the same, sexual harassment by the appellant has been established
and this led to the violation of Rule 3(1)(III) of CCS Conduct Rules and thereby recommended
termination of appellant’s services.
 The EC accepted the report of the committee and suspended the appellant.
  The disciplinary authority and the appellant authority also confirmed the dismissal order.
 The appeal to HC was also dismissed on the grounds: (i) ample opportunity was given to the
appellant to present his case; (ii) discarding of medical certificates were justified because they were
backed by flimsy excuses. The court held that there was no breach of principles of natural justice
(PNJ).

Issues:
 Whether the procedure adopted in conducting inquiry on the complaint by the respondent violated
the PNJ and caused prejudice to the appellant?

Judgement:

Ratio
 Scope of interference by the HC in judicial review-
In order to satisfy that no injustice has been done to the appellant, the HC was required to examine
the decision making process adopted by the complaints committee and not merely the final
outcome. Court is required to satisfy itself that the inquiry into the sexual harassment complaint
conducted by the committee is in accordance with the law and that the concerned employee gets a
reasonable opportunity to present their case.

 Extent of adherence to the “as far as practicable” norm

Rule 14(2) of the CCS Rules provides that the committee is to enquire into a complaint of sexual
harassment “as far as practicable” in accordance with the procedure laid down in the rules. The
procedure prescribed under Rule 14 includes issuance of charge sheet, furnishing details of articles
of charge, statement of imputations in respect of each article of charge, forwarding list of witnesses
and documents on which the employer is relying.
The court observed that in the present case the committee did not strictly follow the prescribed
procedure but it was followed as far as practicable because: (i) all the complaints and depositions
were disclosed to the appellant which made him aware of the allegations; (ii) he was called upon to
give a list of witnesses; (iii) the appellant was given the opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses
including the complainants.
The SC concluded that the appellant was not kept in dark regarding the nature of allegations.

 Committee’s understanding of its mandate

The complaints committee itself understood the scope of its inquiry to be “fact-finding” limited to
submitting a fact finding report to the university. Considering that the committee itself was
uncertain about the scope of its inquiry, the appellant should not be faulted for believing that the
committee's role was limited to fact-finding and not that of a disciplinary committee, as defined by
the service rules. The committee in its capacity as inquiry authority was not required to conduct a
full-fledged trial but every decision making process must have followed the PNJ.

 Fast-forwarding of proceedings
The committee fast forwarded the proceedings without giving reasonable time to the appellant to
effectively participate in the proceedings. The entire process was wrapped up in 39 days, whereas,
CCS Rules provide 6 months from the date of receipt of the order of appointment for concluding the
 inquiry. There were unreasonable preponements of dates of reply and depositions, which amounted
to moving the dates back by a whole month. The appellant making flimsy excuses and extending
the proceedings on health ground also did not justify the committee’s approach.
There was undue haste on the part of the committee to conclude the proceedings resulting in
curtailment of a due process, and fair hearing to the appellant. When the proceedings were
conducted Vishaka Guidelines were in place, although the guidelines were silent on application of
PNJ but when the rules are silent, PNJ must be read into them.

 Error committed by the EC

Both the employer and the committee were oblivious about the scope of its inquiry, and EC failed to
verify their legal position before taking the next step. Basically, the procedure established under
Rule 14 was not followed and the process of inquiry was expediated at the cost of a fair and
impartial hearing.

Decision
 Proceedings conducted by the committee fell short of the “as far as practicable” norm prescribed
under Rule 14 of the CCS Rules because the committee exercised its discretionary powers
improperly, defying PNJ.
 The impugned judgement of the HC upholding the decision of EC of terminating the services of the
appellant was quashed.
 The court remanded back the matter to the complaints committee for taking up the proceedings as
they stood on 5th May 2009 stating that the appellant should be afforded adequate opportunity to
defend himself.

Directions by the Supreme Court:

 To fulfil the objective of the PoSH Act, the court issued certain directions as follows:
i. The union government, state government and union territories are to verify whether all
government departments, organisations, bodies, etc. have constituted International
Complaints Committees (ICC)/Local Committees (LC)/Internal Committees (IC).
ii. All the necessary information regarding the constitution, composition, contact details,
relevant rules, policies shall be mentioned on the website of the organisation. All statutory
bodies of professionals at the union and state level also have to undertake similar exercise.
iii. Steps shall be taken by the authorities/employers to familiarise the members of ICC/LC/IC
about their duties, and the matter of inquiry.
iv. The authorities/employers have to regularly conduct orientation/workshops to upskill the
member of ICC/LC/IC and to educate the women employees of the relevant rules and
regulations.
v. National Legal Services Authorities and State Legal Services Authorities shall conduct
workshops and organise awareness programmes to sensitize authorities/employers and
employees about the PoSH Act.
vi. National Judicial Academy and the State Judicial Academies shall conduct
orientations/workshops for capacity building of members of ICC/RC/IC established in the
High Courts and District Courts.