The Delhi High Court on Tuesday rebuked the central government for identifying a workplace sexual harassment survivor in a handbook published by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, directing authorities to disclose the names of the officials responsible for the publication.
Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma stated that statutory provisions strictly penalise the disclosure of a sexual offence survivor’s identity and stressed that the Union government is equally bound to comply with the law. The court scheduled the next hearing for Wednesday, instructing the central government’s counsel to submit the identities of the personnel who authorised the content.
Legal Obligations and Judicial Precedents
Addressing the government counsel, Justice Sharma questioned how an official ministry publication containing the victim’s name could be released and circulated on a government website. The Centre’s lawyer argued that the Prevention of Sexual Harassment handbook was published in November 2015 for educational purposes and noted that the involved parties had reached a settlement only recently.
The court dismissed the rationale, observing that educational material does not require disclosing a victim’s name. The bench observed that even judicial orders do not publish survivors’ identities, pointing to established Supreme Court and High Court guidelines mandating the use of pseudonyms such as ‘X’. Justice Sharma highlighted that judicial safeguards were already active prior to 2015, adding that any delay by the affected parties in approaching the court does not relieve the government of its obligation to follow the law.
Origin of the Petition and Redaction Requests
The high court was considering a plea filed by the individual accused in the original matter, who requested the redaction of his name from the publication on the grounds that the dispute had been settled.
According to the petitioner’s counsel, the ministry’s handbook incorporated an order from a labour tribunal as an illustrative case study, disclosing the names of both the complainant and the accused. The lawyer stated that the document has since become widely accessible across the internet and requested judicial directions ordering Google to de-index and de-link the material. The counsel further noted that the underlying dispute dates back to 2001, following which the petitioner had also pursued a defamation case against the complainant in Delhi.
