President directs probe into ‘harassment’

President Dr Arif Alvi has directed the Federal Ombudsman for Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace (FOSPAH) to decide the matter of alleged sexual harassment at Air University, Islamabad afresh by allowing the opportunity of hearing to both parties.

The president noted that the Ombudsman had previously not allowed the parties the opportunity to produce evidence and had rejected the complaint of the woman complainant in a slipshod manner, President Secretariat Press Wing said in a press release on Sunday.

The president gave these remarks while deciding on a case where a woman employee of Air University had filed a complaint before FOSPAH that she faced workplace harassment at the hands of a senior university official in 2019 when she reported a serious matter of MBBS students using drugs in the college premises and their involvement in immoral activities.

FOSPAH had rejected her complaint by stating that the complainant had failed to prove her case beyond reasonable doubt and that the complainant had levelled allegations of general nature. Feeling aggrieved, the complainant filed a representation with the president.

The president said that the denial to give the opportunity of producing evidence was a violation of Article 10-A as enshrined in the Constitution, provisions of the Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act, 2010 and the principles of natural justice.

He, therefore, set aside the order of FOSPAH and remitted the matter to the ombudsman to decide it afresh by giving an opportunity of hearing to the parties.

The president further said that the allegations narrated by the complainant against the accused were serious and needed appropriate probing and evidence to reach the right conclusion.

He noted that the ombudsman, instead of following the procedure, had concluded based on the contents of the complaint by observing that “the complainant has levelled allegations of general nature against the administration, and that a representative of the organization appeared and told that none of the complaints had been ever filed and he belied the stance of the complainant.”

The president observed that the ombudsman had placed reliance solely on the contents of the complaint and the statement of a representative of the organization and as a sequel rejected the complaint.

No opportunity of producing evidence or cross-examining the representative had been afforded to the complainant although in the preliminary order, the learned ombudsman had observed that the allegations levelled by the complainant were of grave nature which required evidence, but subsequently, with utter disregard of this preliminary order, no evidence was recorded and the complaint was rejected in a slipshod manner, he added.

The president concluded that because of the gravity of the allegations, the full opportunity of hearing to the parties should have been afforded including the opportunity to produce respective evidence.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 10^th, 2023.