In India, a Phaneesh Murthy might have got away: Lawyers

**New Delhi:**Lawyers for Araceli Roiz have said they will sue Phaneesh Murthy for sexual harassment, but a similar case in India might not have left the complainant with any compensation and may even have resulted in her being targeted.

Leading lawyers having represented women’s issues say that Indian law doesn’t have enough teeth to check sexual harassment and more often than not a case such as Phaneesh Murthy’s - who was fired as president and CEO of iGate on 21 May - would be swept under the carpet.

“In India, the the idea would be to hush it up and not be proactive about taking steps to address the issue,” Mihira Sood, a lawyer and activist told_Firstpost_.

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She said that if such an incident took place in India, as a general rule the victim of the harassment would be asked to leave the company or transferred because “the accused person is so senior and his reputation is tied with the company’s reputation”.

[caption id=“attachment_814625” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Would Murthy have got away if the case had taken place in India? Reuters[/caption]

Sood said that Roiz was fortunate that the incident took place in the US where the victim tends to receive very large damages or settlement amount and “that money can compensate to an extent for what she has potentially lost and also for her to be able to deal with the consequence”.

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Murthy is alleged to have sexually harassed Araceli Roiz, iGate’s head of investor relations at the California-based IT firm, who says she is pregnant with Murthy’s child.

In a country like India where there is a serious under-reporting of crimes against women, reporting it at a workplace becomes even more difficult because of even more victimisation of the victim, said Vrinda Grover, a Delhi-based lawyer.

“Even if they (women) report any act of harassment, the first reaction of management is to be dismissive of the woman’s work performance. In many cases women are compelled to resign or they are accused of filing a false complaint,” Grover said, adding that women reporting such incidents do it at the risk of facing embarrassment and ridicule.

“We know there is a very serious bias that is against women. Just because they sometimes can’t establish a complaint, that doesn’t mean it’s a false complaint,” she said.

To add to that, women in India do not get compensated half as well as their western counterparts.

In 2001 Murthy’s executive secretary Reka Maximovitch filed a lawsuit against him and Infosys - on whose board Murthy sat - in a California court alleging harassment and wrongful termination. Infosys and its insurers paid $3 million to Maximovitch in May 2003 in an out of court settlement.

Another former employee of Infosys Jennifer Griffith, in October 2003, filed a lawsuit against Murthy and the company claiming Murthy sexually harassed her. Griffith was paid $800,000 by Murthy and Infosys’s insurers in 2004.

According to Sood, the settlement in a similar case in India would not be as much. For one, companies are generally apathetic towards such cases because there are no or strict laws making the company liable and two, there is no real compensation structure for such cases.

We also fail to recognise that when we fail to have a proper compensation system in place - especially in the workplace it effects the woman’s earnings, and in effect their career, Sood said.

“It’s pathetic when you are left in a situation where you have to pay and bear the consequences and expected to get on with your life. We are a long way behind in terms of compensation for such victims,” Sood said.

To rectify this situation and have more serious compensation being granted, corporates must take up the issue of sexual harassment at work more seriously, say both lawyers. Also, the law must crack the whip on them if they do not adhere to stringent measures against sexual harassment.

“Just like it’s the job of an employer to make sure that the company’s machines are maintained and functioning well, it is also the job of the employer to make sure that the workplace is conducive to working for women employees,” said Grover. “Once fines start getting imposed the companies will have to shape up.”

Sood concurs that companies need to be liable too.

“In the US companies are as liable to be sued as the individual, which is not the case in India. That makes it far more easy for companies to step around it and take sexual harassment less seriously,” Sood said.

However, even in the US with cases like Murthy’s, who is a repeat offender, the perpetrators get on with their lives in a way more normal than the victims. Despite the incidents with Reka Maximovitch and Jennifer Griffith in 2001 and 2003, Murthy went on to become the CEO of iGate in 2003.

Sood is of the view that people like Murthy get away with such acts because cases of sexual harassment usually get settled out of court, like Murthy’s cases with Maximovitch and Griffith were.

“Since these matters were never decided by court and were out of court settlements, companies overlook it as just a slur on the person’s reputation and not as a formal taint on their record,” she said.

“Because a court is not involved here and there has been no legal conviction, it becomes a bit of a grey area,” Sood adds.