Women conservancy workers approach Madras High Court seeking SHRC inquiry into police excesses

A group of 12 women conservancy workers have filed a joint writ petition in the Madras High Court seeking a direction to State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) to hold an inquiry into police excesses while quelling their protest outside the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) headquarters at Ripon Buildings on August 13.

The writ petition has been listed for hearing before the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan on Thursday. The petitioners led by K. Jothi have also sought a direction to the Tamil Nadu State Commission for Women to probe into alleged sexual harassment by the police.

The litigants, further, sought a direction to the Home Secretary to initiate disciplinary as well as penal action against all the erring police personnel involved in human rights violations and sexual harassment of the women conservancy workers besides paying adequate monetary compensation to the victims.

Filing an affidavit in support of the writ petition, Ms. Jothi said, the temporary workers engaged by the GCC, through self help groups and on daily wages, received a monthly pay of around ₹23,000 if they worked on all days without taking leave. The workers were expecting the civic body to make them permanent employees.

However, suddenly, the GCC decided to outsource the conservancy work to a private company which offered them a monthly take home salary of only ₹16,000. Hence, the workers began a peaceful protest outside the Ripon Buildings on August 1 and it continued till the midnight on August 13, the deponent said.

Stating that the police suddenly swamped down on the protesters on the intervening night between August 13 and August 14, the deponent said, numerous human rights violations and sexual harassments took place when the women conservancy workers were forced into buses for being detained in marriage halls across the city.

The deponent said, only a fair probe by the SHRC as well as the women’s commission would help in exposing the atrocities committed by the police personnel while dispersing the protesters who were peacefully sleeping on the pavements outside the Ripon Buildings during night hours.