MULTAN: The Lahore High Court’s Multan Bench has directed the Multan Electric Power Company (Mepco) chief executive officer to submit a report on the allegation of a woman employee of sexually harassing and blackmailing her.

The woman filed a petition through her counsel Rana Asif Saeed stating that she was appointed commercial assistant under children quota of the deceased employees and later was appointed resident officer, Mepco Division Kot Addu.

On account of dire need of an employee having enough at the Enterprises Resource Planning, Human Capital Management (Module), she was attached in the office of deputy manager training and manpower section on Oct 14, 2015, and made overall coordinator of the section on May 16, 2016.

She stated that through an order on July 19 which was received to her on Aug 2 she was transferred to the office of assistant director, Kot Addu. She requested the court that her transfer order be set aside as being a case of victimisation and exploitation.

Woman officer alleges she was harassed by two colleagues, CEO and transferred to Kot Addu as ‘punishment’

She alleged that she was sexually harassed by two assistant directors of the company against whom she had moved a complaint to the federal ombudsman for her protection at workplace and proceedings in this regard were being conducted.

She stated that she was being forced by the officers to withdraw the complaint and conveyed about her transfer at a distant place as a threat.

She further said that besides the foul play of the accused officers and seeking remedy against them, she came across another trouble when the Mepco CEO, instead of providing support to her, started obnoxious communication with her through WhatsApp messaging using his official number.

She stated that she snubbed the CEO who became furious and threatened her that he would teach her a lesson. She stated that her transfer order had been passed in a whimsical and oppressive manner and was in violation of a decision of Mepco’s Board of Directors.

Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti while suspending the transfer order on Aug 5, directed the CEO and Director General Human Resource and Admin to submit para-wise comments to court within a fortnight.

The petitioner filed a contempt petition stating that after obtaining the certified copy of the court order, she presented it to the CEO. The respondent, she alleged, became furious and developed hostility towards her and she was not being allowed to perform her duties.

She alleged that the CEO even managed to extend threats to her through union office-bearers. The respondents, however, produced a copy of an order while stating that the court order had been complied.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2019