KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition of the K-Electric chief and three senior officials against a show-cause notice issued by the ombudsman for allegedly harassing a former colleague.

A two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M. Shaikh directed the chief executive officer of the power utility and three other members of the senior management to file replies to the show-cause notice before the ombudsman.

They had filed a petition last year against the Ombudsman for Protection Against Harassment of Women at Workplace Sindh and a former female colleague who had filed a complaint before the ombudsman, who subsequently issued them show-cause notices.

The petitioners submitted that the woman in question was appointed consultant in October 2019 for 35 days and in December she was appointed a full-time employee on a contractual basis as chief marketing & communication officer. In October 2020 she was sacked.

While referring to the contentions of the petitioners’ lawyer, the bench ruled that there was no bar in the Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act, 2010 that a woman only during her employment can file a complaint regarding alleged sexual harassment at the workplace.

It is pertinent to mention here that the acts of harassment as claimed by the complainant had allegedly taken place in the office of KE during the period when she was working there, it added.

The bench further observed that the woman in her complaint also stated that her service was wrongfully terminated and to support her stand of sexual harassment at the workplace she along with her complaint had filed multiple transcripts of messages.

However, it said that since the matter was sub judice before the ombudsman and no evidence had so far been recorded, the bench members were refraining themselves from expressing anything.

About another contention of the petitioners’ lawyer that she did not raise her voice or file a complaint during her employment, the bench said that she in her complaint claimed that during employment in the months of July and September 2020 she verbally complained to the board of directors of KE but in October her service was terminated conceivably in retaliation and she filed a complaint in November before the ombudsman.

Regarding quashment of the show-cause notices, the bench said that it would be premature to pass such an order as evidence in the matter was yet to be recorded and soon after issuance of the impugned show-cause notices the petitioners had approached this court and since then no progress had been made in the proceedings pending before the ombudsman.

The petitioners are directed to file their reply to the show-cause notices, which will be considered on its own merits, it concluded.

Published in Dawn, December 8th, 2021