ISLAMABAD: Federal Ombudsperson for Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace Kashmala Tariq has censured the electronic media regulator for not fulfilling the legal requirements to protect its female employees from exploitations by senior officers.

She issued an order on Thursday over a complaint filed by Sidra Karim Awan, an employee of Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra), in January 2020.

The primary accused in the complaint, Haji Adam, director general HR and admin Pemra, and senior official Fakharuddin Mughal, who used to be the spokesman of the authority at that time, have been charged with misconduct and violations of the service rules by the federal ombudsperson.

The order has imposed the major penalty of dismissal from service on Haji Adam with a fine of Rs2 million to be used as compensation for the complainant for hardships she faced at his hands.

Ombudsperson censures electronic media regulator for not fulfilling legal requirements to protect its female employees

The order said Haji Adam failed to substantiate his stance that he had been falsely implicated in the case by the complainant at the instigation and conspiracy of someone else.

An ex-parte decision has been made against the co-accused, Fakharuddin Mughal.

It was proved that he too was guilty of the charge of being instrumental and facilitator of the main accused.

The ombudsperson imposed a penalty of Rs500,000 on him to be paid to the complainant as compensation.

His official position will be reduced to a lower post.

The ex-parte decision was made against Mughal as he did not attend and respond to the notices by the ombudsperson.

“He was on leave and it was claimed that he was not in the country, but several notices were served to him both physically and digitally which were received. He was even given a chance to respond through email too but the accused No 2 did not respond,” said Aliya Zareen, the counsel for Sidra Karim, while talking to Dawn.

The order has been forwarded to Pemra for implementation ‘in letter and spirit’, furnishing a compliance report to the registrar of the Federal Ombudsperson Secretariat for Protection against Harassment (FOSPAH) within seven days.

The complainant had alleged that Haji Adam sexually harassed her in the Pemra headquarters on November 11, 2019. She lodged the complaint with the ombudsperson on January 20, 2020, and the decision was finalised on November 4, 2021.

The order said many factors contributed to the delay, but the key reason was repeated appeals filed by the accused before the president of Pakistan against the orders of FOSPAH and several writ petitions filed in the Islamabad High Court challenging the jurisdiction of FOSPAH.

“If analysed fairly, the responsibility of such delay heavily lies upon the accused because he kept on moving the case file from one forum to the other,” the order added.

The order directed the top management of Pemra to constitute a permanent anti-harassment committee to look into, probe and decide harassment cases and also install CCTV cameras on the conspicuous places to monitor the activities of the staff at workplace.

Pemra has been directed to display code of conduct and guideline of FOSPAH on common areas of the premises for consumption of all and sundry.

Published in Dawn, November 5th, 2021