Madras HC: disciplinary authority cannot impose both suspension and demotion for the same sexual harassment complaint

The Madras High Court has quashed a Pondicherry University order that suspended a professor from service for two years and demoted him, following a sexual harassment complaint by a research scholar, and has remitted the matter for a fresh inquiry. The professor argued that the Internal Complaints Committee, acting under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, never gave him a copy of the inquiry report, never let him cross-examine witnesses, and relied on two earlier, unrelated allegations that were never put to him for a response. Justice C. Kumarappan held that Section 11 of the 2013 Act, and the proviso to Rule 14(2) of the CCS (CCA) Rules permitting a departure from the standard inquiry procedure only 'as far as practicable', cannot be read to dispense with natural justice, applying the Supreme Court's ruling in Aureliano Fernandes v. State of Goa, (2024) 1 SCC 632.

The Court also held, following Surekha Domaji Bele v. Executive Engineer and Union of India v. S.C. Parashar, (2006) 3 SCC 167, that a disciplinary authority cannot combine a major penalty, such as suspension, with a separate penalty, such as demotion, for one act of misconduct unless the governing service rules expressly permit it. The University was directed to hold a fresh inquiry within three months, furnishing all material to the professor and giving him an opportunity to cross-examine witnesses.