SC dismisses woman RAW officer's sexual harassment complaint

The Supreme Court has dismissed the petition filed by a senior woman officer of the country's external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing who had alleged sexual harassment by her superior officers.

"We have gone through the petition as also the documents filed and find that the allegations made by the petitioner (Nisha Priya Bhatia) have been inquired into by several independent bodies including a committee headed by  Renuka Viswanathan and supervised by the cabinet secretary and that no merit has been found in the allegations levelled by her.

"The record further shows that the allegations made by the petitioner have at one time or the other been examined by the National Human Rights Commission and the National Commission for Women and they too had not granted her any relief," the apex court said in a judgement.

The bench of justices HS Bedi and JM Panchal said it did not pass the judgement in the presence of Nisha as she was "surcharged" and "emotionally disturbed".

The Central Information Commission (CIC) has pulled up RAW for not providing Nisha the report of a "complaint committee" to one of its officials after it probed her sexual harassment allegations against her bosses.